Dismissed

Matsya Jivi Sahkari Samiti Ltd. Thru. Its Secy. Sunil Kumar Singh v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Fisheries Deptt. Lko. and 4 Others

Allahabad HC13 May 2022/2702/2022

Case brief

AI extract

What is this about?

The Court dismissed a writ petition challenging a tender notice for fishing rights in Jametha pond. It held that the Deputy Director's order canceling a previous flawed bid process due to simultaneous opening of technical and financial bids was lawful, and the subsequent tender notice raised no illegality.

What did the court decide?

The petition challenging the tender notice was dismissed as it lacked illegality in the underlying orders.

Matsya Jivi Sahkari Samiti Ltd. Thru. Its… — Pension and Retirement Benefits | Allahabad HC (2022)

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Court No. - 2

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Case :- WRIT - C No. - 2702 of 2022

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Petitioner :- Matsya Jivi Sahkari Samiti Ltd. Thru. Its Secy. Sunil Kumar Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Fisheries Deptt. Lko. And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Manzar Ali Khan Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.

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Hon'ble Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya,J. Hon'ble Subhash Vidyarthi,J.

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Heard learned counsel for petitioner and learned Standing Counsel for the State-respondents.

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By means of this petition, a challenge has been made to a manual tender notice inviting bids for the purpose of settling fishing rights in Jametha pond, situate in District Lakhimpur Kheri.

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Submission of learned counsel for petitioner is that prior to issuance of impugned tender notice, the bid process was initiated in which the petitioner was the only successful bidder, however, instead of approving the bid submitted by the petitioner, now fresh tender notice has been issued, which is illegal.

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When we peruse the documents available before us, what we find is that for the purposes of settling the lease rights in the pond in question, initially a tender notice was issued, pursuant to which the last date for submission of bids was 08.07.2021, however, on account of pendency of writ petition, namely, Writ Petition No.13512 (M/B) of 2021 before this Court, the bids could not be submitted by the prospective bidders and once the said writ petition was dismissed by this Court on 12.07.2021, fresh last date was fixed for receiving the tenders manually i.e. 17.08.2021. It also transpires that the said bid process was cancelled for various reasons by means of the order dated 28.08.2021 and again tender notice was issued inviting tenders to be submitted by the prospective bidders by 15.09.2021. In respect of this bid process, three cooperative societies submitted their bids, including the petitioner.

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The technical bid submitted by the petitioner was found to be in order and in respect of the other two tenderers, their technical bids were not found to be in order and accordingly, the Assistant Director made a recommendation to accept the bid

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submitted by the petitioner-society. On the said recommendation, a final decision has now been taken by the Deputy Director (Fisheries) by means of the order dated 12.04.2022 whereby it has been observed that the process adopted for opening of bids was vitiated for the reason that both the technical and financial bids of the tenderers were opened simultaneously, which was against the conditions of tender. Even otherwise, in case in a tender process two tier system is adopted, namely the tenderers are required to furnish technical bids and the financial bids, it is only after evaluation of the technical bids that the financial bids are to be opened.

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In the instant case, evaluation of the technical bids submitted by the bidders and the financial bids was made simultaneously, which cannot be approved. Accordingly, the Deputy Director (Fisheries) has cancelled this bid process as well and ordered for issuance of a fresh tender notice and in response thereto, the impugned tender notice dated 18.04.2022 has been issued.

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The reasons indicated by the Deputy Director (Fisheries) in his order dated 12.04.2022, in our considered opinion, do not suffer from any irregularity or illegality for the reason that in case a two tier bid process is adopted, then opening of the financial and technical bid cannot be simultaneous. The financial bid of only those bidders is to be opened, who qualify on evaluation of the technical bid. The process adopted in this case is thus not as per the norms of the tender.

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Hence, we do not find any illegality in the order dated 12.04.2022 passed by the Deputy Director (Fisheries), Lucknow Division, Lucknow. Consequently, we do not find any illegality or irregularity in the impugned tender notice dated 18.04.2022.

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The petition is, thus, dismissed.

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Order Date :- 13.5.2022 Renu/-

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Digitally signed by RENU AGARWAL Date: 2022.05.13 17:20:04 IST Reason: Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad, Lucknow Bench

Matsya Jivi Sahkari Samiti Ltd. Thru. Its Secy. Sunil Kumar Singh v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Fisheries Deptt. Lko. and 4 Others

Case brief

What is this about?

What did the court decide?

Matsya Jivi Sahkari Samiti Ltd. Thru. Its Secy. Sunil Kumar Singh v. State of U.P. Thru. Prin. Secy. Fisheries Deptt. Lko. and 4 Others

Case brief

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