Patna court vacates stay on BPCL order terminating licence of Tej Pratap petrol pump

A Patna court on Tuesday vacated the interim stay on execution of a Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL) order, terminating the petrol pump licence of Bihar health minister and elder son of RJD chief Lalu Prasad.

Patna sub-judge Sachi Mishra, in her order, referred the matter to an arbitrator under the Arbitration & Conciliation Act.

The public sector oil firm had on June 17 sent the licence termination order to Lara Automobiles, represented by its proprietor Tej Pratap Yadav, after he failed to furnish a satisfactory explanation to the notice issued over the allocation of the property at Anisabad in Patna.

Tej Pratap challenged the oil firm order in the court, which granted an ex parte temporary injunction, restraining the BPCL from “causing obstruction to the plaintiff till he appears and files his say to application for temporary injunction…”

The BPCL had on May 3 issued notice to Tej Pratap, seeking an explanation on the petrol pump licence. The oil company had sought an explanation how he acquired the licence, and asked him to reply within 15 days.

The BPCL notice, served by its territory manager (retail), Patna, Manish Kumar, followed a complaint that Tej Pratap had acquired the petrol pump on Patna’s busy Anisabad bypass road on the basis of “wrong information” he had furnished.

Tej Pratap had applied for the licence in 2012 and the retail outlet was commissioned to Lara Automobiles, represented by him as its proprietor, on February 27 this year.

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Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had earlier alleged that the petrol pump was fraudulently allotted to Yadav during the UPA II regime at the Centre. Modi had alleged that Yadav did not have the stipulated 43 decimal of land for setting up the petrol pump at the time of applying for it.