Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC-LKO:5714-DB Court No. - 1 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 636 of 2025 Petitioner :- Kamla Kant And 2 Others Respondent :- Indian Oil Corporation Limited Lko. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Anurag Narain Srivastava,Chitrangada Narayan,Prashant Chaurasia,Shailendra Kumar Misra,Vartika Pandey Counsel for Respondent :- Waseeq Uddin Ahmed,C.S.C. Hon'ble Attau Rahman Masoodi,J. Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J. 1. Heard learned counsel for the parties. 2. By means of the instant writ petition filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners have approached this Court for the following reliefs:- "i. A writ order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the order dated 17.12.2024 passed by respondent no. 3 as contained in annexure no. 1. ii. A writ in the nature of mandamus be issued directing the respondents to pass fresh order after affording opportunity of hearing to the petitioners and prior to passing the order pertaining to no objection certificate (NOC) the respondents may be directed to specify about the requirements of pa of parivesh portal 2.0 and allow the petitioners to deposit license fees/processing fees." 3. It is recorded in the writ petition that the impugned order dated 17.12.2024 passed under Rule 149 of the Petroleum Rules, 2002 has been passed without affording any opportunity whatsoever to the petitioners. 4. This position could not disputed by the learned counsel for the State. 5. Rule 149 of the Petroleum Rules, 2002 provides as under:- "149. Refusal of no-objection certificate. A district authority refusing to grant a no-objection certificate under rule 144 shall record, in writing, the reasons for such refusal and shall furnish to the applicant a copy of such order: Provided that before refusing to grant a no-objection certificate, the applicant shall be given a reasonable opportunity of being heard." 6. A perusal of the Rule extracted above clearly shows that opportunity of hearing is a condition precedent for passing such an order by the Competent Authority. 7. In the present case, however, since the opportunity has been denied to the petitioners before passing the order, therefore, the same is liable to be set-aside under the law as above. 8. We accordingly set-aside the impugned order with a liberty open to the Competent Authority for issuing a show cause notice to the petitioners and in case a show cause notice is issued to them, the same shall be responded by the petitioners within the time period provided to them in the show cause notice. 9. On filing a reply by the petitioners against the show cause notice, the Competent Authority shall proceed to pass a reasoned and speaking order which shall be communicated to the petitioners. 10. The writ petition is allowed and the impugned order dated 17.12.2024 is hereby set-aside with the liberty as above. . (Subhash Vidyarthi,J.) (A. R. Masoodi,J.) Order Date :- 28.1.2025 -Amit K- Digitally signed by :- AMIT KUMAR High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench