5 min readNew DelhiUpdated: Jul 31, 2026 09:14 PM IST
A division bench of the Delhi High Court on Friday urged a single-judge bench to ensure a faster resolution on an appeal by the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) as the oil and gas public sector unit (PSU) sought the removal of a stay on the suspension of a disputed distributorship in the Capital. The request came even as the High Court refused to entertain the appeal by the BPCL regarding the disputed unit, which was, until recently, under the proprietorship of retired High Court judge Siddharth Mridul.
Justice Mridul, who retired as the Chief Justice of Manipur High Court in November 2024, was appointed as an additional judge at the Delhi High Court in 2008. In 1995, while Mridul was a practicing advocate, he was granted LPG distributorship M/s Kitchen Flame. He continued to be the distributorship’s sole proprietor until at least May 2025. According to BPCL, continuing as proprietor — even during his tenure as a judge — was a breach of agreement.
On Friday, BPCL approached a division bench of Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Tejas Karia, appealing against the two High Court orders of July 13 and July 20 by a single-judge bench. While seeking that the two orders be set aside, BPCL also sought that the interim stay order be vacated on its suspension of supplies to the distributorship over alleged violation of the agreement.
The division bench observed that BPCL is pursuing “parallel proceedings”. “In our opinion, such a course is not available to (BPCL),” the bench recorded, refusing to issue any directions on the appeal.
While reserving the liberty of all parties to approach the appropriate forum, the division bench recorded in its order, “We however request the.. single judge to expedite the proceedings on (BPCL’s) application seeking vacation of stay.” The single-judge bench of Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma is expected to hear the matter on August 28.
BPCL claims agreement breach
Last December, BPCL received a public grievance complaint, alleging that Mridul had continued as the recognised distributor while simultaneously holding constitutional judicial offices, in violation of the distributorship agreement. Subsequently, BPCL, in its communications to Mridul, called upon him to “explain the alleged contractual violation”. According to BPCL, a show cause notice was issued to Mridul by BPCL on May 29 after no response was received.
The show cause notice set out the alleged contractual breaches of the agreement. According to BPCL, with no response from Mridul to the show cause notice, the PSU on July 6 passed an order, suspending LPG supplies of Mridul’s distributorship. As per the show cause notice, the agreement bars the distributorship’s proprietor “to take up any other employment or engage in any other business apart from the operation of the distributorship…”
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Among the irregularities flagged by BPCL was that he continued to hold the proprietorship of the LPG distributorship during his tenure of judgeship, commencing March 13, 2008. It also claimed that Mridul was in “unfaithful performance for not personally supervising the operation running of the distributorship”.
The 17,920 LPG consumers, who were availing services from the distributorship, were also redistributed among adjoining distributors “in public interest”, the PSU said.
Dispute reaches High Court
The distributorship’s day-to-day operations were being run by a man identified Deepak Yadav, who has now died, according to his wife Monika Yadav. She first approached the Delhi High Court in April, seeking that she be granted the proprietorship of the distributorship. The court, however, had disposed of her plea at the time with a direction to BPCL to take a decision on her reconstitution application.
Following the suspension of supply to the distributorship, Yadav again moved the High Court with a contempt petition, claiming that BPCL, without deciding on the distributorship’s reconstitution application by her, as the court had directed, had instead suspended the distributorship’s supplies. BPCL ,however, submitted that it passed a recent order rejecting Yadav’s application.
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On July 13, a single-judge bench of Justice Harish Vaidyanathan Shankar, while issuing notice on Yadav’s petition to both BPCL and Mridul, also stayed the operation of the suspension order, ex-parte.
BPCL, on July 17, moved an application, seeking vacation of the interim stay. The next day, BPCL also rejected Yadav’s application for reconstitution of the distributorship’s proprietorship in her favour.
On July 20, Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma of the High Court only issued notice to Yadav on BPCL’s application seeking a vacation of the stay, observing, “The matter cannot be decided finally today, since the stay application has been filed today itself. An opportunity is to be given to the other side to respond to the same.”
