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Judgment
Heard Mr. K.C. Gautam, learned counsel for the petitioner as well as Mr. K. Paul, learned CGC for the respondents.
The brief fact of the petitioner''s case in a nutshell is that:
The petitioner before your Lordships is aggrieved by the arbitrary action of the respondent DGAR in rejecting his tender at the
qualification stage while at the same time allowing the private respondents tender bid despite clear technical/qualification
shortcomings"".
The case of the Petitioner in a nutshell is that pursuant to a Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) dated 9/12/2015 under reference No. Q-
Fresh/2016-17 (Annexure 1) the respondent Directorate General of Assam Rifles (herein after for the sake of brevity referred to as
DGAR) invited electronic bids (online/e-tender) from interested bidders with valid trade licenses who are engaged in the business of
supply of consumable goods as specified in the schedule appended to the NIT for the financial year 2016-17.
The petitioner before your Lordships having requisite qualification, expertise and experience of over forty years in the field of supply
of consumable items to the Defence Forces vide his application dated 22/01/2016 applied for tender for supply of item at Sch - 95 of
2016-17. The technical bid of the petitioner was rejected by the respondent tender evaluation committee at the qualification stage and
the same was communicated to him vide email dated 29/02/2016 (Annexure IV). Thereafter, the petitioner made enquiries with the
respondent tender evaluation committee where he came to learn that his tender was rejected at the qualification stage for non
submission of VAT registration certificate. The petitioner however, had submitted VAT Clearance Certificate with his bid which
contained his VAT registration No. which is indicative of the fact that the bidder had a valid VAT Registration Certificate. On further
enquiry your petitioner came to learn that the bidder (Respondent No. 4) who had qualified at the technical stage did not possess the
requisite qualification as prescribed by the NIT dated 09/12/2015. The relevant clause of the NIT dated 09/12/2015 amongst others
required that the bidder must enclose along with his bid performance certificate issued by authorized agencies specifying therein the
past experience of the contractor. The Respondent No. 4 did not enclose the experience certificate and clearly her tender bid did not
meet with the requirements of the NIT. However, the respondent tender evaluation committee despite clear qualification shortcoming
allowed the technical bid of the private respondent making her the sole tender to qualify at the technical bid and thereby making it
apparent that the respondent authorities are bent upon illegally settling the tender in favor of the private respondent"".
The learned counsel for the petitioner submits that, on mere technicalities just because the VAT Registration Certificate was not submitted due
to oversight, his tender was not processed and the supply order was issued to the private respondent, Mrs. Kalyani Debnath in violation of the
rules and norms. He also further contended that the private respondent did not furnish the past experience certificate. So the work order may be
cancelled.
The learned counsel also brought to the notice of this Court that, initially this Court called the tender processing file vide order dated 16.06.2016
and asked the learned CGC to keep it ready for stay if necessary, but unfortunately the respondent issued the work order in favour of the
respondent No. 4 on 23.06.2016.
On the other hand, the learned CGC submits that the work order is going to expire by 31.03.2017 and the same had to be issued as the matter
involved the supply of rations to the Jawans. He also submits that the tender of the petitioner was considered, but it could not be accepted due to
non availability of the VAT Registration Certificate. In reply, Mr. K.C. Gautam, learned counsel for the petitioner, stated that the rate quoted by
the private respondent No. 4 was to a great extent much higher than the rate quoted by the petitioner.
Furthermore, the learned CGC also submits that the technical bid for the financial year 2017-18 is already under process.
After hearing the submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the parties and keeping in mind the issue involved regarding the supply of
rations to Jawans, if this Court cancels the work order, it may create heavy inconvenience to the respondent. Besides that the work order is almost
coming to an end, left with only another 2 (two) months. Therefore, right at this stage, I am not interfering or cancelling the work order, though the
respondent''s authority has done certain mistakes. Firstly, I observed that when the record was called on 16.06.2016, the respondent should not
have issued any work order in favour of anyone without taking prior permission of the Court in case of any urgency. Secondly, none furnishment of
the VAT Registration Certificate should not be the sole criteria to reject the tender since they could have asked the petitioner to furnish the VAT
Registration Certificate. Thirdly, while issuing the work order, it is the general duty of the authority concerned to issue order in favour of the lowest
bidder; taking into consideration the other criteria if required. However, since it is too late to cure all those defects, let this present work order
continue till 31.03.2017 only and thereafter, this work order should not be extended even for a day. Fourthly, I feel that justice has not been done
to the petitioner, so he should be allowed to submit the tender within a week from the date of receipt of a copy of this judgment and order.
With this observation and direction the writ petition stands disposed of.