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Chairman cum Managing Director, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd v. Sunita Kumari

Civil Appeal · Neutral citation not assigned (Civil Appeal No. 8980 of 2014)Decided 18 Sept 2014
Civil Appeal No. 8980 of 2014
Justice Madan B. Lokur · Justice C. Nagappan

Background

An Indian Oil dealership awarded to the highest-ranked candidate was cancelled after a court-appointed committee found extraneous considerations in the selection. The second-ranked candidate obtained a High Court direction awarding it to her instead. In a connected matter, a third-ranked candidate sought a different distributorship following a similarly tainted allotment.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed Indian Oil's appeal and quashed the direction granting Sunita Kumari the dealership; it also dismissed the connected petition. Political patronage or other extraneous influence vitiated the selection process and required cancellation of the entire panel and a fresh selection. Moving automatically to the next name would perpetuate the tainted process. The Court distinguished a cancellation limited to one candidate's eligibility or marks, which does not necessarily undermine the rest of an otherwise valid selection.

Lesson Learnt

A place on a panel does not guarantee allotment when the whole selection was compromised by patronage. The consequence differs where only an individual candidate's eligibility or scoring is defective and the selection process itself remains valid.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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