Pending PDS licence application must be decided by the Sub-Divisional Officer within three months.

The petitioner sought a direction to the Sub-Divisional Officer, Masaurhi, Patna, to issue a fresh Public Distribution System (“P.D.S.”) shop licence pursuant to the High Court’s earlier order dated 27 July 2019 in CWJC No. 1548 of 2017.

In the earlier writ petition, the petitioner had sought a P.D.S. licence in his name on compassionate grounds following the death of his father.

He subsequently chose not to press that petition and was granted liberty to submit a fresh application in accordance with the Bihar Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016, if permissible in law.

The petitioner contended that, pursuant to the liberty granted, he submitted an application before the Sub-Divisional Officer, but the application remained pending and was neither allowed nor rejected.

During the present proceedings, he confined his prayer to a direction for disposal of that pending application.

1. Whether the Sub-Divisional Officer should be directed to decide the petitioner’s pending application for a fresh P.D.S. shop licence in accordance with law?

2. Whether the Court should itself direct issuance of a fresh P.D.S. shop licence to the petitioner?

The Court applied the Bihar Targeted Public Distribution System (Control) Order, 2016, which governs the grant of P.D.S. licences and requires such applications to be considered in accordance with the applicable statutory framework.

It also relied on the Division Bench decision in Md. Noman v. The State of Bihar through District Magistrate, Araria, 2019 (1) PLJR 823, in light of which the petitioner had been granted liberty in the earlier proceedings to submit a fresh application, subject to its permissibility under the 2016 Control Order.

The Court further followed the principle that where an administrative application is pending, the appropriate relief may be a direction to the competent authority to decide it in accordance with law, without the Court adjudicating the underlying merits.

The Court noted that the earlier order dated 27 July 2019 did not itself grant the petitioner a licence; it merely permitted him to submit a fresh application, if legally permissible under the 2016 Control Order.

Since the petitioner asserted that such an application had been filed but remained undecided, the Court considered it inappropriate to determine his entitlement to a licence directly.

Instead, it treated the failure to decide the application as the immediate grievance and directed the competent authority—the Sub-Divisional Officer, Masaurhi—to consider and dispose of it in accordance with law.

The Court expressly refrained from examining the merits of the petitioner’s claim.

It directed the Sub-Divisional Officer, Masaurhi, Patna, to pass an appropriate order on the petitioner’s pending application within three months from the date of receipt of a copy of the order.

The writ petition was accordingly disposed of, without adjudication on the merits, and any pending interlocutory application was also disposed of.