Tuesday, January 18 2005 16:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The Supreme Court appointed high-level committee, which advised cancellation of 296 petrol pump allotments of the 409 it scrutinised, has recommended that MPs should not be allotted dealership of petroleum products and if given should resign from their membership of Parliament before taking up the dealership.

The two-Judge Committee appointed by the apex Court by its December 12, 2002 order, in its report said an MP has to attend Parliament and meetings of Parliamentary Committees entailing long absence from his place of allotment of the retail outlet.

"They cannot thus run the Dealership/Distributorship themselves but have to engage employees to supervise work. They, therefore, do not fulfil the necessary condition of 'Full Time Working Dealer'," the report said.

The recommendations of the Committee were quoted in the affidavit filed by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas while responding to the query of the Supreme Court about the supply position of the petrol, diesel and cooking gas in the allotted areas in the event the Court decided to cancel the 297 allotments termed illegal by the Committee.

The Committee felt that an MP, in the event of being allotted Dealership/Distributorship of petroleum products, should resign from the Membership of Parliament before he/she could avail such allotment.

The Ministry, responding to the Court query, said out of the 296 allotments not approved by the two-Judge Committee, only 201 dealerships have been commissioned and 95 were yet to be commissioned.

The Ministry, in its affidavit, said the Committee has inferred that in the matter of evaluation of merits of the candidates, there had been arbitrary marking as there was a wide variation in the marks given by the Chairman of the Dealer Selection Board and the marks of other Members of DSB.

Accepting the principles adopted by the Committee in scrutinising the tainted allotments, the Petroleum Ministry in its affidavit said the cancelled retail outlets, where the land belonged to the company, should either be operated by the oil company or the "nearest best available existing dealer" till a regular dealer was appointed in accordance with the Dealer Selection Policy.

In the cases where the land belonged to the allottee, the latter should be asked to transfer the land to the company and in case of refusal the oil company would have no option but to close the retail outlet, it said.

However, it promised to increase the supply to the existing dealers in the area to meet the shortfall caused by the closure of the retail outlet.

Regarding the LPG and kerosene dealerships, the Ministry said that those not approved by the two-Judge Committee should be cancelled and the affected area could be catered by the neighbouring dealers without causing any hardship to the public at large.

The Court, after perusing the affidavit filed by the Ministry, posted the matter for further hearing after four weeks.