A. S. OKA, J.

( 1 ) BY this Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India, the Petitioners have taken exception to the action of the Respondent No. 1-The mumbai Municipal Corporation of appointing the respondent Nos. 4 to 7 as consultants for the work of quality audit of road works in the city of Mumbai and suburbs. The challenge in this Petition is mainly on the ground that the contracts have been awarded to the respondent Nos. 4 to 7 without inviting tenders as required by Section 72 of the Bombay Municipal corporation Act, 1888 (hereinafter referred to as the corporation Act ). The contract involves public money to the tune of rupees four crores.

( 2 ) THE first Respondent has undertaken a massive programme of improvement of roads. Normally the work of construction and/ or repairs of roads is supervised by the Municipal Officers and is randomly checked by the vigilance Department of the first Respondent. As there was a criticism of general road conditions in city of mumbai, the first Respondent appointed Standing technical Advisory Committee (for short STAC) under the chairmanship of one Shri N. V. Merani, a retired principal Secretary of the Public Works Department of the Government of Maharashtra. The Committee was asked to evaluate all road related issues and advise on all aspects of road construction, design, maintenance and beautification for achieving better quality of roads. The said Committee submitted its recommendations. The committee inter alia recommended that the quality audit of the road work should be carried out and the work of quality audit should be entrusted to third parties. The committee stated names of four local firms and suggested that said local firms may be approached for taking over the quality audit involving visits to the works atleast once in a month and also at the time of taking over the work of the completed road from the concerned contractor. The Committee recommended that a suitable clause will have to be added in the tender of the road work contractors to ensure that the contractors provide requisite facilities to the quality audit teams.

( 3 ) IN August, 2005 first Respondent called for quotations from seven organisations for the work of quality audit of the twenty three works of concretisation of roads and thirty-five works of asphalt roads. The said works were already commenced by that time. The last date for submitting quotations by the said seven chosen organisations was 22nd August, 2005. Out of seven, only four namely, the fourth to seventh respondents herein submitted their quotations. The quotations were received in two packets. The first packet containing technical bid was opened on 22nd august, 2005 and the second packet containing financial bid was opened on 16th September, 2005. The commissioner of the first Respondent submitted proposal on 22nd November, 2005 before the Standing Committee recommending that contracts may be awarded to the respondent Nos. 4 to 7 without inviting tenders. The reason given in the said proposal for dispensing with requirement of inviting tenders was that only a few selected organisations are working in the field and therefore, no effective purpose will be served by inviting tenders. The Standing Committee of the first respondent passed a resolution dated 12th December, 2005 granting approval to the proposal submitted by the commissioner. It was stated in the resolution that for the reasons recorded in paragraph No. 9 of the proposal submitted by the Commissioner, contracts may be awarded without inviting tenders by publication of public notice.

( 4 ) THE Petitioner No. 1 claims to be a Project management Consultant with large experience in the field of project management consultancy work in the State of maharashtra, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh. The contention of the Petitioners is that the Petitioners have carried out similar quality audit work elsewhere. Another contention is that there are sixteen reputed consultants in the sa