The main legal point established in the judgment is that the requirement of attestation must be clearly specified in the notice inviting tender, and in the absence of such specification, self-certification by the tenderer may be considered sufficient compliance.

1. Petitioner is aggrieved by order, as contained in Annexure-2, the order of Chief Engineer-1, Rural Works Department, Government of Bihar, Patna dated 16.10.2008, by which petitioners technical bid was rejected on the ground that the papers submitted by petitioner was not certified/attested and it is the correctness of this decision that is in question.

2. Respondent-State through AAG-10 has filed a counter affidavit and reiterated that the papers not being certified/attested by Gazetted Officer, petitioners technical bid could not be considered, notwithstanding, petitioner complying with Clause 32 of the NIT, which provided for self-certification, which was done.

3. With consent of parties the writ petition has been heard for final disposal at this stage itself.

4. Facts are not in dispute. State through the Executive Engineer, Rural Works Department, Works Division, Nawada invited a short term tender for several roads. Package-4 with which we are concerned, was Construction of Road from PWD Jamaharia More to Kadsari Road at a cost of about Rs. 5.17 lacs. Tenderer were to file technical bid with various papers and documents which had to be certified (Satyapit)/attested (Abhipramanit) photo copies. Clause 32, inter alia, provided that the tenderer should self-certify all certificates and papers and any paper which is not so self-certified will not be taken into consideration.

5. The petitioner, as required filed his tender in two separate envelopes, first in respect of technical bid and second in respect of financial bid. On opening his technical bid, it was found that even though all copies of certificates and papers, as filed by the petitioner were self-certified, they were allegedly not attested by any Gazetted Officer, as such, his technical bid was found to be invalid and that is the communication, as contained in memo no. 2999 dated 16.10.2008 of the Chief Engineer-1, as aforesaid, which is impugned.

6. At the very outset, I may point out that it is not in dispute that apart from stating that the photocopies of certificates have to be certified/attested, it is not stated as to by whom nor any person or authority has been specified for the said certification or attestation. It is also not in dispute that Clause 32 required all papers to be self-certified, which was duly done by the petitioner.

7. The stand of the Respondent-State is clear and categorical that the certificates not being duly attested by Gazetted Officer, petitioner failed to comply with essential condition of the notice inviting tender, that being so his technical bid was rightly rejected. It is submitted that pursuant to interim order of this Court, even though, financial bids were opened excluding the petitioner, no selection has been made as yet.

8. Having heard the parties, in my view, the writ petition must succeed. State in my opinion is relying on a hyper-technicality, which serves no purpose.

9. In common parlance "attest" means to bare witness; to certify; to affirm to be true or genuine; to make a solemn declaration in words or writing to support a fact; to certify to the verity of a copy of a public document (Abbot Law Dictionary). In other words, it is to affirm to be true or genuine copy of a document.

10. Whenever there is requirement of attestation, the law or the parties so requiring, normally specifies the authorities whose attestation they would accept. Copies of documents can be attested depending on the requirement by simply any Gazetted Officer, by Bank or by certain individuals having certain position and others. This has to be specified and there is no presumption that whenever a copy of a document is required to be attested, it must be attested only by a Gazetted Officer. The purpose of attestation, as would be seen, from the general definitions given above, is to go by the authenticity or accept the authenticity of the document. It could be so done in absence of any other stipulations by the person in whose favour the do