A society challenged the rejection of its technical bid for a government laundry tenders in Mayurbhanj, arguing illegal disqualification due to procedural lapses and eligibility disputes. The court held the agency correctly rejected the bid for non-compliance with eligibility criteria.
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.
W.P.(C) No. 26201 of 2020 W.P.(C) No. 26201 of 2020
02. 06.10.2020 HON’BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE MR. MOHAMMAD RAFIQ HON’BLE DR. JUSTICE B.R. SARANGI
Mr. J. Panda : for petitioner Mr. P.K. Muduli, AGA : for State-opposite parties
ORDER
Heard learned counsel for the parties by video conferencing mode.
2
submitting their tender in two bid system. The pre bid meeting was fixed to 06.04.2020, but was extended from time to time and subsequently, it was held on 05.06.2020. The petitioner was earlier debarred from participating in any kind of tender process for a period of three years excluding the financial year, i.e., 2017-18, pursuant to order dated 20.07.2017 passed by the CDMO, Mayurbhanj, which was challenged before this Court in W.P.(C) No. 8278 of 2019. A division bench of this Court, vide order dated 30.04.2019, taking into consideration the judgment of the apex Court in Joseph
Vilangandan v. The Executive Engineer (P.W.D.), Ernakulam and others, AIR 1978 SC 930 held that no proper notice or show cause was given to the petitioner regarding blacklisting and as such, the action taken by the opposite parties debarring the petitioner from participating in any kind of tender/quotation/bidding process for three years excluding the financial year 201718 appears to be illegal and arbitrary, and accordingly set aside the order dated 20.07.2017. But this Court passed an order that debarring the petitioner from participating in any kind of tender/quotation/bidding process for three years excluding the financial year 2017-18 is too harsh. Accordingly clarified that the petitioner will be debarred from participating in any kind of tender/quotation/ bidding process for three years only and would be entitled to participate in such process from 01.04.2020. Pursuant to such order, the petitioner became eligible to participate in the process of tender. After the decision of pre bid meeting dated 05.06.2020, by virtue of the
3
corrigendum issued to all the bidders on 18.05.2020, it was intimated that the bid was going to open on 17.06.2020. Accordingly, the petitioner attended such meeting. But its bid was not evaluated in front of the petitioner and it was told to be scrutinized subsequently. But somehow or other, its technical bid was not accepted due to non-furnishing the number of workers as indicated in serial no.18 and that it has also suppressed the fact that it had been blacklisted earlier by indicating “No” under serial no.20 of the evaluation of eligibility criteria for mechanized laundry service by tender notice dated 25.03.2020, thereby it was disqualified as not fulfilling serial nos. 18 and 20. Hence this application. 4. Mr. J. Panda, learned counsel for the petitioner contended that though it was notified in the tender notice that technical bid would be opened in presence of the bidders, but the same has not been done in case of the petitioner. As such, while declaring the petitioner as disqualified from the technical bid for non-fulfilling serial nos.18 and 20, no opportunity of hearing was given, since it had not been noticed. Therefore, the petitioner has approached this Court by filing this application. 5. Mr. P.K. Muduli, learned Addl. Government contended that the writ petition suffers from suppression of material facts. More so, the petitioner was not eligible by the time the bid was submitted. Further, the petitioner was very much present at the time of evaluation of technical bid, but its bid was not taken into consideration due to non-fulfillment of serial nos.18 and 20. Thereby, no illegality or irregularity has been
4
committed by the authority concerned by rejecting the petitioner’s technical bid. Therefore, the writ petition merits no consideration and the same has to be dismissed.
5
20.07.2017, this Court held that debarring the petitioner from participating in any kind of tender/quotation /bidding process for three years excluding the financial year, i.e., 2017-18, is too harsh, and accordingly clarified that the petitioner would be debarred from participating in any kind of tender/quotation/bidding process for three years only and would be entitled to participate in such process from 01.04.2020. Therefore, even though the tender notice was issued on 25.03.2020, since last date was fixed to 24.04.2020 for submission of bid, the petitioner became eligible after 01.04.2020. Therefore, the bid submitted by the petitioner was to be taken into consideration, as he was eligible to participate in the tender process.
6
petitioner has not submitted the required affidavit declaring it not to have been blacklisted either by the tender inviting authority or by any State Govt. or Govt. of India organization. Consequentially, it was disqualified as not fulfilling serial nos.18 and 20. The check list of RFP clearly indicates that under serial no.20 the petitioner was to produce the format T6, which requires to be stated with regard to blacklisting of the organization and under serial no.18 number of workers has not been furnished. Thereby, in absence of any of the documents, as mentioned in the check list of technical proposal or in the prescribed format, which has been mentioned in page-35 of the brief, leads to rejection of the technical bid of the petitioner. Accordingly, the petitioner’s technical bid has been rejected by the authority. As the petitioner has not adhered to the conditions stipulated in the tender documents, while evaluating the technical bid, the authority has rejected the same due to non-adherence of the conditions stipulated in the tender documents.
As Lock-down period is continuing for COVID-19, learned counsel for the parties may utilize the soft copy of this order available in the High Court’s official website or print out thereof at par with certified copies in the manner prescribed, vide Court’s Notice No.4587 dated 25.03.2020.
(DR. B.R. SARANGI) (MOHAMMAD RAFIQ) JUDGE CHIEF JUSTICE
GDS/ Ajaya
7
2 issues framed by the court
Whether the rejection of petitioner's technical bid due to non-submission of required eligibility criteria and suppression of blacklisting history warrants judicial interference.
Whether the petitioner, who was debarred until 01.04.2020, became eligible to participate in the tender process.
Colour shows how this judgement treated each authority
Joseph Vilangandan v. The Executive Engineer (P.W.D.), Ernakulam and othersReferred¶9
Joseph Vilangandan v. The Executive Engineer (P.W.D.), Ernakulam and others, AIR 1978 SC 930 · Who else cites this
W.P.(C) No. 8278 of 2019Referred¶9
Order dated 30.04.2019Referred¶9
Petitioner Society
Chief District Medical & Public Health Officer, Mayurbhanj
Mohammad Rafiq
B.R. Sarangi
As recorded by the court registry
Judgements on the same questions, provisions and authorities, from every court
