Fair-price-shop salesmen have no vested right to challenge the society’s surrender of the shop.

The petitioners were salesmen engaged by Gram Van Samiti Manikheda, which operated various fair price shops, including those at Singhpur, Dhoraj, Nibourakala and Sakatpur.

They alleged that the Society terminated their services and appointed other salesmen through allegedly illegal resolutions, without granting them an opportunity of hearing.

They had challenged those actions in connected writ petitions, in which interim orders were passed on 27 and 28 September 2022.

Subsequently, the Society adopted a resolution dated 21 December 2022 surrendering the fair price shops, and an advertisement dated 1 March 2023 was issued concerning their operation.

The petitioners alleged that the surrender was mala fide and intended to frustrate the interim orders, and sought quashing of the resolution and advertisement.

The respondents contended that the petitioners, being only salesmen, had no vested right to continue in employment or to challenge the Society’s decision to surrender the shops.

They also relied upon the alternative remedy under the Madhya Pradesh Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016.

Whether the petitioners, being salesmen engaged by the Society, had a vested or enforceable right to challenge the Society’s resolution surrendering the fair price shops?

Whether the resolution dated 21 December 2022 and the consequential advertisement dated 1 March 2023 were liable to be quashed on the ground that they were mala fide and intended to frustrate the interim orders passed in the connected writ petitions?

Whether any relief could be granted when the fair price shops had already been surrendered and were being operated by the Government Department?

The Court referred to the Madhya Pradesh Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016 as providing an alternative mechanism for raising grievances concerning the public distribution system.

It applied the principle that a salesman engaged by a fair price shop-owning Society does not possess a vested right either to continue in that position or to challenge the Society’s administrative decision to surrender the fair price shop.

The Court further proceeded on the basis that, once the Society had surrendered the shops and the Government had assumed their operation, no effective relief could be granted to the petitioners against the surrender decision.

The Court accepted that the petitioners were merely salesmen and not persons having an independent legal interest in the continuation of the Society’s fair price shops.

Although the petitioners alleged that the surrender resolution was motivated by mala fides and was intended to defeat the interim orders in the connected matters, the Court held that their status as salesmen did not confer upon them the standing or vested right necessary to challenge the Society’s decision to surrender the shops.

The Court also considered the factual position prevailing at the time of hearing—namely, that the shops had already been surrendered and were being operated by the Department—and concluded that the petitioners could not obtain relief against that completed administrative action.

The connected writ petitions were accordingly dismissed for want of merit, with no order as to costs.