Petitioners challenged termination of their appointment as Business Correspondents with State Bank of India post-agreement expiry. The Division Bench held it was a contractual service, no vested right existed post-expiry, and renewal was discretionary. The writ petition was dismissed.
This page shows the compact analysis of this judgement. The full analysis — procedural history, issue-by-issue holdings with ratio and obiter, advocates, and paragraph-level evidence for every claim — is being added to the record in batches and will appear here when this judgement has been through it.
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Court No.39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 10137 of 2018
Petitioner :- Vimlesh Kumar Dube And 18 Ors. Respondent :- Union Of India And 5 Ors. Counsel for Petitioner :- Siddharth Khare,Sr. Advocate Counsel for Respondent :- A.S.G.I.,Satish Chaturvedi
Hon'ble Dilip Gupta, J. Hon'ble Neeraj Tiwari, J.
The petitioners were appointed as Business Correspondents in district Jaunpur in State Bank of India for a period of one year for which a contract was entered into between the petitioners and the State Bank of India. In September 2016, a fresh agreement was executed for a period of one year which expired in September 2017. The petitioners are aggrieved by the communication dated 30 January 2018 sent by the State Bank of India informing them that the agreement expired on 29 September 2017 and that the petitioners cannot act as Business Correspondents with the Bank with effect from 31 January 2018 and, accordingly, their business correspondence code would be deactivated.
Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioners has contended that initially a communication dated 20 December 2017 was sent to the petitioners requesting them to get the renewal of their Consumer Service Point agreement upto 28 February 2018 on the prescribed agreement but subsequently as the petitioners did not get the renewal done, the order dated 30
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January 2018 was passed. It is submitted that a very short period was granted to them to submit the renewal.
Sri Satish Chaturvedi, learned counsel appearing for the respondents, however, contended that the petitioners did not have a vested right to continue as Business Correspondents after the expiry of the period of contract and in any case even the renewal that was granted upto 28 February 2018 for such Business Correspondents who had submitted the renewal applications in time was not subsequently renewed. Learned counsel has also placed before the Court the decisions dismissing the claims of such Business Correspondents.
We have considered the submissions advanced by learned counsel for the parties.
A Division Bench of this Court, in regard to the similar controversy, dismissed Writ-C No.5359 of 2018 by a detailed judgment dated 8 February 2018, which is reproduced below:-
“1. Sri Abhai Raj holding brief of Shri A. Chaturvedi, Advocate has filed a vakalatnama on behalf of respondent No.3, which is taken on record.
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systems of the petitioners' B.Cs. are automatically renewed upto 2027 as would be clear by perusal of the SBI KIOSK ADMIN SITE.
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extend the agreement for extra period. Further, in case of those Business Correspondents including the petitioners, agreements have expired. Hence the direction was given to stop opening of the account and further advised that they may convert themselves as Central Service Provider, if they were interested to work as Business Service Providers. If the Bank was not interested to take facility of Business Correspondents and the period was expired then it is not a fit case to issue a writ of mandamus to the Bank to renew the agreement because it is a purely contractual service.
In the instant case, the term expired in September 2017. A communication was sent to the petitioners to submit the renewal application for a period upto 28 February 2018. The petitioners did not submit any application and thereafter the order dated 30 January 2018 was passed informing the petitioners that they will not act as Business Correspondents with effect from 31 January 2018.
The petitioners may have been asked to submit applications by communication dated 20 December 2017 for renewal upto 28 February 2018 but, as noted above, they did not submit any application. In any case, where the applications were submitted for renewal, renewal was granted only upto 28 February 2018. The petitioners did not have the vested right to continue as Business Correspondents once a policy decision has been taken not to renew the term. The petitioners, therefore, cannot insist for
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renewal of their term. This is also what has been observed by the Division Bench of this Court in Writ-C No.5359 of 2018 decided on 8 February 2018.
The writ petition is, accordingly, dismissed.
Order Date :- 22.05.2018 GS
(Dilip Gupta, J.)
(Neeraj Tiwari, J.)
3 issues framed by the court
Whether the court should interfere under Article 226 to compel the State Bank of India to renew the petitioner's agreement as a Business Correspondent.
Whether the petitioners have a vested right to continue as Business Correspondents after the expiry of their contractual agreement.
Whether the non-renewal of the petitioner's agreement was arbitrary or illegal.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Writ-C No.5359 of 2018Explained¶12
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Vimlesh Kumar Dube And 18 Ors.
Union Of India And 5 Ors.
Dilip Gupta
Neeraj Tiwari
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
