Anil Mehta vs Union of India and Others

Rajiv Sahai Endlaw, J.—The petitioner claiming to be a Contractor engaged in the business of providing Fire Fighting equipment, pleads that though he has been desirous of business from the respondent No.3 M/s Hindustan Prefab Ltd., an undertaking of Government of India but the corrupt practices in the respondent No.3 do not allow a fresh bidder to participate and contracts are being repeatedly awarded to the respondent No.4 M/s Mehta Enterprises or respondent No.5 Shri S. Kumar who are working in nexus with the unscrupulous officials of the respondent No.3. He claims the reliefs of, quashing of the contracts awarded by the respondent No.3 to the respondents No.4 & 5 and a mandamus requiring the respondent No.2 Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) to act on the representation / complaint of the petitioner; mandamus is also sought to ensure that no future contracts or works are awarded to the respondents No.4&5.

The allegations in the petition however are general and vague. The petitioner has not made specific pleadings of any particular tender awarded by malpractice. Though he has also contended that payments are being released by the respondent No.3 to the respondents No.4 & 5 under the contracts awarded to them, without the respondents No.4 & 5 doing the work, but there are no particulars in that regard also. Moreover, it appears that if the petitioner is aggrieved with respect to any particular tender; the petitioner ought to challenge the same contemporaneously rather than seeking such general reliefs as claimed in this petition.

Confronted with the same, the counsel for the petitioner confines the relief in this petition to a direction to the respondent No.2 CVC to investigate into the matter.

In this regard, it may be noticed that the petitioner had earlier preferred W.P.(C) No.353/2011 claiming the same relief but which was dismissed on 19.01.2011 observing that not even one month had elapsed since the complaint of the petitioner to the respondent No.2 CVC and that the petition raises highly disputed questions of fact which ought to be examined, in the first instance, by the respondent No.2 CVC.

The counsel for the petitioner contends that notwithstanding the same, the respondent No.2 CVC has not taken any action on his representation.

This Court would be loath to direct the respondent No.2 CVC, already overburdened, to commence investigation, without this Court forming even a prima facie view of the need for any such investigation. The petitioner has utterly failed to even make out a prima facie case of any illegalities in the award of contracts by the respondent No.3 to the respondents No.4 & 5. If this Court were to start issuing directions to the respondent No.2 CVC on the basis of bare general allegations against the Government Undertakings and its officials, not only would it choke the functioning of respondent No.2 CVC but will also unnecessarily interfere with the business of the said governmental undertakings. Such relief also cannot be granted to the petitioner.

Petition is therefore dismissed. I refrain from imposing any costs on the petitioner this time but it is made clear to the petitioner that if in future he is found to have filed any such frivolous petition without appropriate pleadings, he will be burdened with heavy costs.