The Hindu : Petrol pump issue: Caveats filed to prevent stay orders

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Aug 08, 2002

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National

Petrol pump issue: Caveats filed to prevent stay orders

By Sushma Ramachandran

NEW DELHI AUG. 7. Even as the public sector oil companies today filed caveats in the Supreme Court and High Courts to prevent ex-parte stay orders on the cancellation of petrol pump and gas dealerships, the existing owners of these agencies are gearing up to protest the move in an organised manner.

The Federation of All-India Petroleum Dealers sent a representation to the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, urging that a committee of enquiry be set up to examine individual allotments. It said that the Government had issued 6000 letters of intent for dealerships prior to the dismantling of the administered pricing mechanism (APM) and sought to know whether these would also be affected by the decision to cancel all agencies allotted after January 2000.

The president of the federation, Ashok Badhwar told The Hindu that the decision was not as simple as had been made out. First, the 6000 LOIs had been issued prior to dismantling APM on April 1. The oil companies had been told to "adjust'' them before going ahead with the appointment of new dealers. Second, the LOIs issued since 1995 or 1996 had yet to be implemented in many cases due to various reasons such as non-availability of land or funds or other factors. "What happens to these people?'' he asked.

The federation said that other special categories of allottees such as handicapped persons, war widows, unemployed graduates and Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, should be kept out of the purview of cancelled dealerships as in the case of Kargil victims. There would be extreme hardship to those who had been granted the dealerships in the normal course, it added.

The federation, which is obviously looking to the courts for legal recourse ultimately, will first meet the Prime Minister and seek creation of a committee of enquiry. This could establish the genuine allottees. Mr. Badhwar said the federation was receiving calls seeking clarifications, which would have to be made soon by the Government.

Meanwhile, in a bid to stave off a legal battle, the public sector oil companies, the Indian Oil Corporation, the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited and the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited have filed separate caveats in various High Courts today. Disclosing this here, the Petroleum Minister, Ram Naik, told presspersons that this was to prevent any local court from granting a stay on the decision to cancel allotments of over 3000 petrol pumps and gas agencies without a hearing.

The Petroleum Ministry had begun the process of terminating the dealerships while "a fool-proof legal regime'' was being drafted in consultation with the Law Ministry to avoid litigations.

Mr. Naik said various issues, including the present guidelines of reservation for backward castes and allotment to persons below Rs. two lakh per annum income, had to be decided for the auction of the cancelled dealerships. Similarly, there was reservation for backward castes, defence personnel and physically handicapped in award of dealerships. Whether this should be continued or not had to be considered. The issue of the method of inviting bids had also to be decided, as to whether it should be through sealed envelopes or through auction.

Once again, Mr. Naik refuted any allegations of wrongdoing in the allotment of petrol pumps and gas agencies during his tenure. He said that not a single allotment was made at his or his Ministry's behest. Instead, all allotments were made through fairly independent dealer selection boards (DSBs), headed by retired judges. He said that unlike during the Congress regime when DSBs had political activists as members, the 59 DSBs operating since 2000 had senior oil company officials as their members.

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