- (1.) Heard the counsel for the petitioner Sri Karunakar Srivastava and Sri Vivek Kumar Shukla for the State.
(2.) The petitioner's contention is that though the vacancy of fair price shop dealer was to be filled in by general category candidate but the District Magistrate proposed that the shop be allotted to opposite party No. 4, who was a scheduled caste candidate. We are informed by the counsel for the petitioner that till date, the shop has actually not been allotted, in view of the interim order of this Court, which provided as under: "In the meantime, in case the actual allotment has not been made in favour of opposite party No. 4, the same shall not be made unless it is determined by the S.D.O. that the shop in question has to be allotted to a candidate belonging to reserve category. He shall determine this question first and then shall make allotment of the fair price shop."
(3.) Counter-affidavit has been filed by the State, wherein it has been stated that since in the district of Gonda, number of fair price shops were lying vacant in different Gram Panchayats, therefore, after the issuance of Government order dated 10.8.2007, the District Magistrate, Gonda issued an order on 12.12.2007, whereby the vacancies were required to be filled up from the reserved category candidates. In pursuance of the aforesaid order, the District Magistrate issued another order dated 23.2.08 for the purpose of making allotment of the vacant shops in favour of the reserved category candidates for filling up all such vacancies.;