SAMAPTI CHATTERJEE, J. - (1.) The petitioner has filed the present writ petition assailing the impugned cancellation order issued under Memo No. 1990 /1(16)/DCF(M) dated 10th August, 2015.
(2.) The brief case of the petitioner is as follows : - That the petitioner firm was appointed as a MR distributor sometime in the year 1997 by the respondent no.5 in terms of the power conferred upon him by an administrative order, since there was no existence of any control order at that relevant point of time, therefore, after introduction of West Bengal Public Distribution System (Maintenance and Control) Order 2003, the petitioner no.1 obtained the licence under the said control order which was renewed from time to time and lastly was valid upto 31st December, 2013. The said control order 2003 was repealed and a fresh control order 2013 has come into force. Accordingly the petitioner after expiry of the validity of the said licence obtained the licence under control order 2013 in the year 2014 which has been renewed and was valid till 31st December, 2015. That on 26th June, 2015 the Central Vigilance Squad of the Food and Supply department carried out inspection at the business premises of the petitioner and the stock position was assessed on the basis of eye estimation. Thereafter, the Central Vigilance Squad drew up the report indicating both the book balance and the physical balance. Some samples along with registers were taken away for testing and other bags was marked with Red Ink. Accordingly on 2nd July 2015, the petitioner was served with a show cause notice against which a tentative reply was sent by the petitioners on the 8th July, 2015. In the reply the petitioner prayed for supplying the documents in support of the show cause notice dated 2nd July, 2015 so that the petitioners may file a effective statement of defence. But without supplying the documents as prayed for and without giving an opportunity of hearing as contemplated under Clause 31 ( c ) of the West Bengal Public Distribution System (Maintenance and Control) order 2013 the District Controller passed the impugned order dated 31st July, 2015 and 10th August, 2015 thereby terminating the distributorship of the petitioner. Hence, the present writ petition.
(3.) Mr. Kalyan Kumar Bandyopadhyay learned senior counsel appearing for the petitioners strongly submitted that no physical verification was at all made by the respondent authorities. Only on the basis of the eye estimation the impugned show cause notice was issued which is bad in law.;