The petitioner, who was unsuccessful in the tender process for development of Ultra Modern Layout on joint venture on public private partnership basis at Dakamarri, Visakhapatnam, conducted by respondent No.1, filed the present Writ Petition for a Writ of Mandamus to declare the action of respondent No.1 in not entering into an agreement with it in respect of the said contract as illegal.

2. Respondent No.1 identified an extent of Ac.98.64 cents at Dakamarri, Bheemunipatnam Mandal, Visakhapatnam District, for conversion of the said land into house plots on layout under a public private partnership scheme. It issued "Request for Proposal" (for short "the RFP") to invest, develop, share and market the plots by preparing an ultra-modern layout. Out of twelve agencies which procured the bid documents, eight participated in the pre-bid meeting and at the request of some of them, the tender process was rescheduled by fixing 18- 1-2008 as the date for opening of Cover-3 (Financial Proposals), instead of 11- 1-2008 as scheduled earlier.

3. The RFP document envisages filing of the bids in three separate sealed covers, viz., Cover-1 for Technical capability; Cover-2 for Techno-Business Proposal; and Cover-3 for Commercial Offer. It provided for evaluation of bids of responsive bidders under three steps. Under steps 1 and 2, evaluation of technical capability and techno-business proposals respectively is undertaken and under step-3 evaluation of commercial offer is done. The commercial offers of five bidders, including the petitioner, were evaluated under step-3 (Cover-3). On 18-1-2008 the commercial offers were opened in the presence of the representatives of the bidders, and the details of their offers, as contained in the petitioner's affidavit, are extracted hereunder and for convenience the figures contained therein are referred with reference to the Columns in which they are mentioned:

Sl.No Name of the Total Layout Development Minimum

Bidder area in Square share in Guaranteed share

yards Percentage in Square yards

1. M/s.Ramky 2,38,708.80 50.00% 1,19,354.40

Infrastructures.

2. M/s. Image One Enter- 4,77,417.60 66.24% 1,73,932.78

prises Pvt. Ltd.

3 M/s.Vensar Cons- 2,86,450.00 81.04% 74,477.00

tructions Company Ltd.

(2nd respondent)

4 M/s.Vision Ventures Ltd. 2,85,870.00 68.00% 1,94,391.60

(Petitioner)

5 M/s. Arihant Foun- 2,86,056.00 60.00% 1,71,666.00

dations & Housing Ltd.

Apprehending that respondent No.1 may accept the offer of respondent No.2, the petitioner filed the present Writ Petition.

4. The petitioner's main plea is that respondent No.2, who failed to file a responsive bid, disqualified itself for being considered under Step-3. According to the petitioner, the figure mentioned by the petitioner in Column-5 "Minimum guaranteed share in Sq.yards" does not match with the percentage figures given by it against Column-4 "Development share in percentage". The petitioner pleaded that by applying the percentage mentioned in Column-4 to the total layout area in square yards mentioned in Column-3, the resultant figure comes to 2,32,139 Sq. yards, which should have been the minimum guaranteed share to be given to respondent No.1 and that, instead, respondent No.2 mentioned the figure a 74,477 Sq. yards in Column No.5.

5. On behalf of respondent No.1, its Vice-Chairman- Sri G.Venkatram Reddy, filed his counter-affidavit, wherein it is stated, inter alia, that the extent of land available for layout is Ac.98.64 cents, which by conversion into Sq. yards comes to 4,77,621; out of this area, the bidders are required to specify the extents they propose to carve out as plotted area; that out of the said plotted area, they are required to specify the extent of plotted area they offer to respondent No.1 not o