B. SUDERSHAN REDDY, J.

( 1 ) THE petitioner in the instant writ petition prays for issuance of a writ of Mandamus declaring tghe action of the respondents in termination Work-order dated : 28-12-1996 as arbitrary, illegal, malafide and unjust.

( 2 ) THE petitioner is a Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 and is engaged in the business of undertaking turnkey contracts of fire protection, detection systems. It claims to be one of the most reputed and highly regarded as a specialised fire engineering company in the country and stated to have executed several contracts with Companies such as, NTPC, BHEL, ONGC, ECIL, Bombay Port Trust and New Mangalore Port Trust. It is stated to have commissioned systems worth about Rs. 200 crore successfully.

( 3 ) THE Visakhapatnam Port Trust (for short vpt ) invited tenders through open news paper advertisements for design, manufacture, supply delivery, erection, testing and Commissioning of fire fighting facilities for proposed LPG Jetty at Visakhapatnam Outer Harbour at an estimated approximate cost of Rs. 4. 8 crore. The petitioner-Company and two others submitted tenders pursuant to the said invitation. It is clear from the record that tenders were issued to six firms, including the petitioner herein, who are pre-qualified as per the recommendations of the consultants M/s. Consulting Engineering Services (India) Pvt. Ltd. , New Delhi for the work of design, manufacture, supply, delivery,erection, testing and commissioning of fire fighting facilities for the proposed LPG Jetty of VPT Outer Harbour. Out of the said six firms, only five firms have submitted their offers and the Cover-I (Technical bids) of the tenderers was opened on 29-2-1996.

( 4 ) THE technical bids of the four firms, including that of the petitioner were sent to the consultants for evalution and comments. The consultants in their evaluation report dated : 25-6-1996 have stated that the petitioner s offer requires to be clarified on some technical issues. After obtaining the clarifications, further discussions were held by the Tender Committee, assisted by the consultants, with the representatives of the firms, including the petitioner herein, on 23-7-1996 and 24-7-1996 to sort out their outstanding technical and commercial issues to bring the offers as per the respondents requirement. Further confirmation/data furnished by the petitioner was examined by the Consultant. It is, at this stage, the petitioners herein represented in letter dated : 13-10-1996 and the Tender Committee found that the offer of the petitioner would be considered along with those of other two firms as the petitioners is (i) pre-qualified by the Consultants and (ii) for a better competition in the bids. Purusant to the requisition by the respondents, the petitioners herein furnished further clarification on the technical bids on the points raised by the Consultants. Thereafter, all the three firms, including the petitioner herein were requested to attend to a pre-bid meeting with the Tender Committee and Consultants for discussion on the outstanding technical issues on 11-10-1996 and 12-10-1996. The issues discussed in the presence of the Tender Committee were duly minuted and signed by all the authorised representatives of the firms, including the petitioner herein in token acceptance of the same.

( 5 ) IT is clear from the record that the price bids were to be opened on 14-10-1996. After completion of the technical discussions, the petitioner was asked to purchase pumpsets from either of the three companies viz. , (i) M/s. Worthington Pumps India Ltd. (ii) M/s. Kirloskar Brothers Ltd. (iii) M/s. Jyothi Limited.

( 6 ) IT is the case of the petitioner that the respondents having summoned all the three tenderers including the petitioner herein on 14-10-1996 forced all of them to give an undertaking on the respondents letter-pad that Kiroloskar make Pumpsets would only be considered by them while furnishing price bid at 3-30 p. m. on 14-10

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