S.R. Udayashankar vs The Commissioner, The Executive Engineer Infrastructure Division-II, Executive Engineer PRR Division Bangalore Development Authority and Mestrappa Venkatarama Reddy

A.S. Bopanna, J.—Learned counsel for the petitioner seeks leave of this Court to dispense with the notice to respondent No. 4. Leave granted. Notice to respondent No. 4 is dispensed. The petitioner is before this Court seeking for issue of writ of mandamus to direct respondents No. 2 and 3 to forbear from insisting on the pre-qualifying criterion contained in Clause 3.2 (a) for achievement of minimum financial turnover in each two financial years in a block period of five financial years for consideration of the tender submitted by the petitioner. The petitioner is also seeking for evaluation of the tender submitted by him and for a direction to respondents No. 2 and 3 to adhere to the standard qualifying criterion of the requirement for the minimum financial turnover.

The petitioner has responded to the tender floated by the respondents for execution of work of improvements of the outer ring road between Nayandahalli Junction to Goraguntapalya junction. The bid submitted by the petitioner has been rejected during technical evaluation as he does not satisfy the requirement with regard to the financial turnover. The grievance of the petitioner is that though the standard requirement is for achieving the financial turnover was for atleast two years, the respondents have modified the same to provide that it is for each of the two financial years. It is the contention of the petitioner that in view of such pre-qualification, the attempt of the respondents is to eliminate the competition and to favour certain of the tenderers to whom the respondents are favoured.

The respondents have filed their objection statement and disputed the contention of the petitioner and have contended that the work has been retendered. While doing so, the standard requirement alone has been adhered to. Though such rival contentions have been advanced, keeping in view the fact that the petitioner is before this Court assailing the pre-qualification requirement, in my opinion, the said aspect does not call for examination in the instant petition since the petitioner knowing that the said qualifications were prescribed has already taken part in the tender process and thereafter has approached this Court. However, keeping in view the nature of the contention put forth by the petitioner and also taking note of the fact that the petitioner has submitted representations to the respondents with regard to inappropriate pre-qualification being fixed, the respondents may look into the representations and come to a conclusion with regard to the appropriate pre-qualifications that are required to be fixed in future. Since the law is well settled that the fixing of pre-qualification would be in the domain of the Tender Accepting Authority, all these aspects may be examined by the respondents in future.

In terms of the above, the petition stands disposed of.