1994 (12) TMI 352

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..... ith any one to hold a medical store inside the hospital premises, Patnagarh could be sustained in the absence of any material to show that the said decision of the Government is arbitrary or opposed to any rule or regulations in that behalf. 3. The brief facts leading to this appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution are that the State Government of Orissa with a view to streamline the existing procedure for opening of 24 hours medical stores in the college, Hospitals, etc. and in supersession of previous instructions took a decision that 24 hours medical stores shall be opened in the campus of the hospitals which shall remain open for all the 24 hours with a view to make the medicines available to the patients at competitive price. C .....

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..... beds, there will hardly be any business to sustain them. The respondents also came forward with an offer that the petitioners No. 1, and 4 to 7 (who are respondents No. 1, 4 to 7 herein) whose medical stores are near the gate of the hospital shall keep their medical stores open day and night and that they are willing to give an undertaking to that effect to the Superintendent/CDMO, Bolangir. The said petition was contested by the appellants herein by stating that the said advertisement was issued in view of the Government policy to open the medical shop within the campus of the hospital in public interest and specially to make the medicines available to the patients even at odd hours. 4. It appears that during the course of arguments in .....

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..... hours and, therefore, the High Court should not have interfered with the administrative decision of the Government taken in the public interest. We find considerable force and much substance in these submissions. 6. In the aforesaid background the question arises whether, in the absence of any rule or regulation to the contrary, can the power of the State be abridged on the basis of an individual interest of certain trader, even to the extent of restricting the State's capacity to advance larger public goods. It can hardly be disputed that the consideration of availability of the medicines to the patients should be the uppermost consideration as compared to the right of a person to derive income and make profits for his sustenance b .....

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