Coming soon: Pump Ordinance

The Petroleum Ministry drafted a proposal for the Cabinet today which was being vetted by the Law Ministry late tonight following the Allahabad High Court’s observation that the government should have conducted an impartial probe before cancelling the allotments.

Earlier, the Chennai High Court had also asked the counsel for an oil company during the hearing of a similar writ petition whether the government planned to order a CBI inquiry into the allotments.

The Ministry wants to get the ordinance in position before a similar case comes up for hearing before the Supreme Court on August 26. The presidential decree—backing Prime Minister’s August 5 decision to cancel the allotments in public interest—would in one sweep end all cases pending before the various courts.

The proposal has the legal backing of Solicitor General Harish Salve who has advised that the government will find it hard to defend the PM’s decision to unilaterally cancel the allotments since the government was not directly involved in the selection process.

Another reason given by him is that countering writ petitions throughout the country in different courts would be both time and money consuming.

In all, 3,060 dealerships were granted through the Dealership Selection Boards (DSBs) since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power. Termination of about 50 per cent of these has not been a problem since letters of intent had not been issued to the successful candidates.

The Allahabad High Court, while granting a stay in the writ petition filed by Chandra Pal Singh, had termed the impugned orders as ‘‘arbitrary and illegal’’ and ‘‘a knee-jerk reaction’’ to the situation.

The court had suggested that the ‘‘proper course of action for the Centre was to constitute a high-level impartial body for investigation as to whether the dealerships were granted on extraneous considerations or genuine considerations.’’

Only after the investigation—where an opportunity would have been given to hear each dealer—chould the allotments granted on extraneous considerations have been cancelled, the court said in its order. The order, it said, should govern all the dealerships of the above nature in UP and not just confined to the petitioner alone.