SIDDHARTHA VARMA,J. - (1.) The petitioner's fair price shop was suspended on 12.05.2011. Thereafter, the suspension order was recalled on 10.06.2011. Again when the petitioner's fair price shop was suspended on 24.06.2011 and cancelled, thereafter, on 04.07.2011, the petitioner filed a writ petition being a writ petition No. 35438 of 2011. Initially an interim order was granted on 07.07.2011, which was subsequently vacated on 29.01.2014 and the petitioner was relegated for availing the remedy of Appeal. When the petitioner's Appeal was dismissed, he filed a writ petition being writ petition No. 62538 of 2014. This writ petition was allowed on 27.02.2019 and the Court after quashing the orders dated 04.07.2011 and 24.09.2014 restored the petitioner's shop. Thereafter, it appears in pursuance of the High Court's order on 30.03.2019 the petitioner was given back his shop. On 15.06.2019, a show cause notice was again issued to the petitioner stating that on 13.06.2019 a team which had been constituted as per the order dated 27.02.2019 had held a meeting in which the Gram Pradhan, the complainant Shri Pal himself had met along with other villagers and in the open meeting as many as 96 complaints were found and were brought on record. The petitioner, thereafter, was required to give his explanation to the show cause notice dated 15.06.2019. When, however, on 18.07.2019 the Sub-Divisional Officer, Rampur Maniharan, District- Saharanpur cancelled the licence of the petitioner, the instant writ petition was filed. The petitioner in effect made the following three submissions:- i) Show cause notice if is perused shows that 96 complaints were made against the petitioner. What exactly were the complaints was not enumerated in the show cause notice given to the petitioner. Learned counsel for the petitioner states that as per the Govt. Order dated 29.07.2004 when the show cause notice was issued the punishment also which would have followed the enquiry should have been given out. Since this show cause notice was extremely vague and it only enumerated the complaints without any details the show cause notice was not a show cause notice in the eyes of law. ii) Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that if the order dated 18.07.2019 is perused it becomes clear that when the petitioner was the given show cause notice a reply was expected from him. Various opportunities were given to the petitioner on 17.06.2019, 01.07.2019 and on 05.07.2019 and when the petitioner did not submit any reply it was presumed that he had accepted the charges and the licence was cancelled. Learned counsel relying upon a judgement reported in : (Aajad Kumar vs. State of U.P. and 2 Others,2018 126 AllLR 721), submitted that if the Enquiry Officer desired to punish the petitioner, he should have conducted a full fledged enquiry on his own. He should have called the complainants and should have got the complaints enquired into. Only after being satisfied that the complaints were correct he should have passed the order of punishment. Learned counsel for the petitioner submits that simply because the petitioner had not filed his reply it could not be concluded that he was guilty. iii) Learned counsel for the petitioner further submits that though in the order it has been stated that no reply was filed, he had infact made an effort on 06.07.2019 to submit the reply. This he states in the Supplementary Affidavit, which he has filed today.
(2.) Learned Standing Counsel, however, in reply submits that when the petitioner was not submitting any reply then there was no other option left with the respondent/State to conclude that the petitioner had accepted his guilty. Learned Standing counsel further submits that a show cause notice did not require an enumeration of charges. The petitioner when was informed of his mistakes, he should have gleaned out the charges from the statement of facts which were supplied to him. There was no requirement to give a definite statement of charge.
(3.) Learned counsel appearing for the subsequent allotee, the Caveator adopted the arguments of the learned Standing counsel.;