The main legal point established in the judgment is that for a writ application to be maintainable, the 'bundle of facts' constituting the cause of action must be material, essential, or integral to the dispute between the parties.

Petitioner, a private limited company, has filed this writ application, through its Director, for a direction to the respondents to produce the original order of the cancellation of its tender for the work namely “ Protection work of right bank of Tail water Channel of Maithon Hydel Station, Maithon (in short “the said work”) and to quash the same. It has further prayed for quashing of the letter, contained in memo no.257 dated 03.06.2011 (Annexure-10) (so far as it relates to the petitioner), whereby petitioner and others have been informed to collect the earnest money, deposited pursuant to notice inviting tender, on account of they being declared unsuccessful bidders. It has further prayed for a direction to the respondents to execute the agreement, pursuant to the tender dated 08.04.2010, for completion of the said work, as, after opening of financial bid, petitioner was marked L-1 and found most suitable contractor for execution of the work, and thereafter allow the petitioner to complete the work. It has further prayed to restrain the respondents from inviting fresh tender for the said work and for finalizing the same with any other contractor.

2. Petitioner is a registered contractor with the Government of Bihar having its registered office in the district of Patna, as described in the cause title of the writ application. On 08.04.2010 notice inviting tender was published by the respondents for “Protection work of right bank of Tail water Channel of Maithon Hydel Station, Maithon” with an estimated cost of Rs.5,04,15,296/-, for which earnest money of Rs. 10 lacs was fixed with other terms and conditions for submission of tender. A corrigendum was issued to the notice on 29.04.2010 which also formed part of the main tender notice. As petitioner fulfilled requisite qualification as per the notice, it submitted its tender with all particulars and earnest money, which was accepted by the respondents. Besides petitioner, many other parties submitted their tender in response to the notice. However, after scrutiny, tender papers of only four bidders, including that of the petitioner, were found valid by the respondents. Since the tender could not be finalized within 180 days, the respondents, through memo no.1647 dated 22.11.2010 (Annexure-2), requested the petitioner and other bidders to extend the time of validity of their tender for further period of 180 days, to which petitioner complied through memo no.355 dated 06.12.2010 (Annexure-3). Thereafter Technical Committee of the respondents examined the technical bids of the qualified tenderers and found the bid of the petitioner, as well as one M/S P.K. Thakur and Company Private Limited, technically fit. Hence, as per minutes dated 04.01.2011 (Annexure-4), the Committee recommended for opening of price bid (financial bid) of the two Companies. Later on the W&ST Committee-II, in its meeting also examined the tender papers of two companies and, by resolution dated 02.03.2011 (Annexure-5), decided to approve the opening of price bid of the said two Companies. Accordingly it was informed by letter dated 05.03.2011 (Annexure-6) that price bid was to be opened on 18.03.2011 at 3.30 PM in the office of Senior Divisional Engineer (Civil) Dam Division, DVC, Maithon and request was made to petitioner or its authorized representative to be present during opening of the price bid. Accordingly, on the date and time fixed price bid of the petitioner and the other company was opened in the presence of their representatives. The price bid quoted by the petitioner was found as Rs.5,49,02,257.00, whereas price bid quoted by the other company was found as Rs.6,10,02,508.00. Hence, in comparison to the department estimate (DE) amount disclosed in the notice, petitioner?s quoted rate was found 8.9% above and that of the other company was found 21% above. Accordingly comparative statement was prepared (Annexure-7) in which petitioner was put at L-1, whereas the other company was put a