JUDGMENT

R. BANUMATHI, J.

Leave granted. These appeals arise out of common order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court dated 26.7.2012 passed in CWP Nos. 8415/2012 & 8416/2012 whereby the High Court declined to interfere with the action of the Food Corporation of India (FCI) rejecting tender of the appellants-firms.

2. Brief facts leading to the filing of these appeals are as follows:-The appellants are partnership firms having five partners. Respondent No. 2 -FCI invited tenders for Mandi Labour Contract (MLC) for its centres at Uchana, Sonepat, Narwana and Safidon and the appellants applied for the tender. The tender consisted of two parts -technical bid and price bid. As per the procedure, on successfully qualifying the technical bid, the price bid was to be opened. The appellants were eligible in technical bid thereby making themselves qualified for opening of price bid. The said price bid was opened on 2.3.2012. The appellants’ bid was not considered by FCI, in view of the fact that in the earlier tender of Road Transport Contract (RTC) of Hathin– Rajasthan, the appellants had failed to deposit the security deposit and bank guarantee within the stipulated period as required and