Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:90841-DB Court No. - 40 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 16031 of 2025 Petitioner :- Linkwell Telesystems Pvt. Ltd. Respondent :- State Of Up And 3 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Manu Khare Counsel for Respondent :- Baleshwar Chaturvedi,C.S.C.,Krishna Agarawal Hon'ble Shekhar B. Saraf,J. Hon'ble Dr. Yogendra Kumar Srivastava,J. 1. Heard Sri Shashi Nandan, learned Senior Counsel assisted by Sri Manu Khare, learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner; Sri Krishna Agarwal, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent no.2; Sri Baleshwar Chaturvedi, learned counsel appearing on behalf of respondent nos.3 and 4 and learned Additional Chief Standing Counsel appearing on behalf of the State. 2. This is a writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India wherein the writ petitioner is aggrieved by order dated May 8, 2025 passed by respondent no.2/Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited whereby the petitioner's company has been blacklisted and bank guarantee furnished by the petitioner has been forfeited. 3. The factual matrix of this case indicates that a show cause notice was issued to the petitioner in response to which petitioner gave an explanation and the said explanation was put up before the five members committee wherein opportunity of hearing was granted to the petitioner. The five members committee passed an order dated December 31, 2024 recommending the forfeiture of the bank guarantee furnished by the petitioner and blacklisting of the petitioner's company for a period of three years. Subsequent to the same, no opportunity of hearing was granted to the petitioner. 4. It appears from perusal of the impugned order dated May 8, 2025 that approval was taken from the Managing Director, Uttar Pradesh Power Corporation Limited and subsequent to approval being granted, the impugned order was passed. The impugned order further deals with an e-mail that was a report submitted by the Superintending Engineer (Store) on May 6, 2025 indicating the percentage of damaged meters. This e-mail is subsequent to the recommendation of the committee. Furthermore, it appears that neither the report of the committee dated December 31, 2024 nor subsequent reports issued in the year 2025 were provided to the petitioner before passing of the final order dated May 8, 2025. 5. Learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner has relied upon a judgement of this Court in Writ - C No.35310 of 2024 (V-Marc India Limited vs. State of Uttar Pradesh And Others [Neutral Citation No. - 2025:AHC:12685-DB]) decided on January 24, 2025 to buttress his arguments that after the committee report has been forwarded recommending a particular course of action, the petitioner should be granted an opportunity to controvert the said report, and only thereafter, final order should be passed against the petitioner. The relevant part of the said judgement is delineated below:- "6. In the meantime, since the impugned order has been quashed and set aside, the petitioner shall not be considered to be blacklisted and it may participate in Government's tender, in accordance with law. 7. A note of caution is also required to be provided herein. The judgements of the Supreme Court and this Court have laid down the law that the punishment of blacklisting is required to be imposed upon a person only in rare cases, as the same is extremely harsh and stringent that deprives a person of his right to carry on business. Many a time, it appears that the authorities are using the tool of blacklisting as a mechanism for extraneous reasons. Such practices are deprecated by this Court. It is to be further noted that the period of blacklisting has to be proportionate to the fault committed by the person upon whom the blacklisting is being done. 8. The above comments in the foregoing paragraph are only in the nature of obiter dicta and should act as guiding principles to the authorities before passing the order of blacklisting." 6. In light of the above, the impugned order dated May 8, 2025 is quashed and set aside with regard to blacklisting of the petitioner's company for a period of three years and with regard to rest of the action taken against the petitioner, we do not find it fit to interfere with the same leaving it open to the authority concerned to have the same adjudicated in accordance with law. 7. With the above observations, the writ petition is disposed of with liberty granted to the respondent authority to proceed in accordance with law against the petitioner with regard to blacklisting after granting proper opportunity of hearing and after providing all the documents that have been relied upon for the same. Order Date :- 27.5.2025 Dev (Dr. Y. K. Srivastava,J.) (Shekhar B. Saraf,J.) Digitally signed by :- DEV PRAKASH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad Digitally signed by :- DEV PRAKASH High Court of Judicature at Allahabad