ALKA SARIN, J. - (1.) Heard through video conferencing.
(2.) The present civil writ petition has been filed under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for quashing the letters dated 13.01.2021 (Annexure P-7), 23.01.2021 (Annexure P-8) and 02.02.2021 (Annexure P-10) whereby the appeal filed by the petitioner has been refused to be forwarded by the respondents to the Dispute Resolution Panel and has been returned since it was not accompanied with a pre-deposit of Rs.5,00,000/-. It has also been prayed that a direction be issued to the respondents to constitute the Appellate Tribunal in terms of the Marketing Dispute Guidelines.
(3.) The facts in brief are that the petitioner was operating a Retail Outlet dealership of the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL). During an inspection on 24.10.2019 certain deviations were noticed by the officials of IOCL and as a result the sales and supplies of the Retail Outlet were suspended. A show cause notice was issued to the petitioner who replied to the same and on 10.07.2020 (Annexure P-2) the Retail Outlet dealership of the petitioner was terminated. The petitioner filed CWP No.12303 of 2020 in this Court challenging the inspection report, the show cause notice and the termination order. Before this Court the respondents contended that the petitioner has an alternate remedy of filing an appeal under the Marketing Discipline Guidelines (MDG). As a result, vide order dated 10.12.2020 (Annexure P-4) CWP No.12303 of 2020 was dismissed. However, the petitioner was given liberty to avail his remedy of appeal before the prescribed authority in accordance with law. It was further ordered that since the petitioner has been agitating his grievance before this Court, therefore, if the petitioner files the appeal before the appropriate authority within a period of thirty days then the limitation for filing the said appeal shall be deemed to have been condoned and the concerned authority shall decide the appeal of the petitioner on merits.;