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the Dealership Agreement and the Marketing Guidelines effective from 8.1.2013 (MDG) for several minor, major and critical irregularities reported by the two members team ( supra).

2.4 The petitioner submitted the detailed reply on 21.6.2022 to the aforesaid show-cause notice. Since the reply was not found satisfactory thereafter the petitioner was served with the IInd show cause notice dated 28.7.2022 proposing the termination of the retail outlet. The petitioner filed a detailed and exhaustive reply to the second show-

cause notice in defence by submitting that no ground for terminating the retail out is made out. Along with the reply, the petitioner filed an affidavit of Mr. Inderjeet Singh Rai, an Engineer of GVR stating on oath that the soldering work was done by him at the relevant point of time. Therefore, no tempering was done by the petitioner after the installation of DUs in the retail outlet. After receipt of the reply, the petitioner was provided with an opportunity for a personal hearing on 6.9.2022. The petitioner appeared and explained its working to the authority and specifically denied the violation of any provisions of any Act, Rules, Terms & Conditions of Dealership and MDG. On 6.9.2022, the hearing was held in the office of Executive Director and State Head, MPSQ in which Dipak Kumar Basu, ED & SH, MPSO; T.N. Sunder Rajan, GM(RS), MPSO; S.K. Nair, Manager (Law), MPSO, Anoop Kushwah, DGM (Retail Sales), MPSO; and Anant Mundra son and authorized representative of Mrs. Kiran Mundra, Proprietor of the petitioner were present. The minutes were recorded and the hearing was declared as concluded. Thereafter, vide impugned detailed order dated 20.9.2022, the dealership/retail outlet of the petitioner was

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terminated forthwith under Clause 5.1.2/5.1.3/5.1.4/5.1.16 (a)/(b)/

(c)/8.2 (iii)/8.3 (viii)/8.5.1/8.5.3/8.5.4 of the MDG and Clause 7/

(i)/45(a)/45(k)/45(o) etc. of the Dealership Agreement. The petitioner was requested to hand over the possession of the retail outlet to the authorized representative of the IOCL. The petitioner was also informed about the right to appeal under Clause 8.9 of MDG-2012 within 30 days before the appellate Authority (Executive Director (Retail Sales) (South West), Head Office, Mumbai or any Executive Director level officer at the Head Office nominated by the IOCL.

terminate the dealership. These guidelines (MDG) are binding on the petitioner, in which, the limited procedure is provided for taking penal action. The said procedural guidelines are not under challenge in this petition by the petitioner. The fact-finding inquiry cannot be compared with a full-fledged trial in civil suits or criminal trials where the witnesses are called upon to depose on oath and the facility of cross- examination is to be given. In the MDG there are categorisations of different types of irregularities and definite and specific penalties/ punishment are provided therein. If a particular irregularity is found to be critical and the opinion of statutory authorities i.e. W&M Department, is against the dealer then except termination there is no scope of providing lesse punishment admission per the MDG. If all conditions are fulfilled, then only a limited opportunity of a hearing is liable to be given to the dealer before recommending termination of the dealership agreement. Therefore, the procedure has duly been followed in this case by the IOCL as prescribed in MDG. The action of termination and/or irregularities have been approved by the State Head/ED - Dipak Kumar Basu and thereafter the order of termination has been passed. In view of the above, in the considered opinion of this Court, no scope for interference by the High Court.