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2020 Supreme(Pat) 152
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA
Mohit Kumar Shah, J.
Lal Babu Roy, Proprietorship Firm Having Its Registered Office At Village And P O -bahgwanpur, Colony-nandpuri, P S -sadar, District-muzaffarpur - Appellant
Versus
State Of Bihar - Respondent
Civil Writ Jurisdiction No. 6224 of 2020
Decided On : 13-07-2020
Ashish Giri, Advocate, Kumar Alok, Advocate, Pushkar Naraian Shahi, Advocate, Patanjali Rishi, Advocate
Headnote:
Government Contract – Debarment – Rejection of technical bid – Though petitioner might have completed work in question as far as earlier contracts are concerned, however, same has been completed after a huge delay and debarment order qua petitioner was passed by Engineer-in-Chief much earlier – Till date, neither petitioner has approached this Court for quashing of said debarment order nor same has been quashed by any court of law or any authority nor same has stood revoked by respondent authorities – It cannot be said that order of debarment would be having no effect/force and would be deemed to have been revoked – There is no prayer for quashing of debarment order and present writ petition is merely for purposes of setting aside decision of Technical Bid Committee whereby and whereunder petitioner has been declared to be unsuccessful in technical bid on account of him being under effect of debarment order – Since order of debarment of petitioner is still intact and has neither been revoked nor set aside, it cannot be deemed to be having no force – Petitioner has definitely suppressed factum of it being under effect of debarment and has also filed a false affidavit which amounts to engaging in fraudulent practices and consequently, entails rejection of proposal of petitioner firm, as far as NIT in question is concerned – No infirmity in decision of the Technical Bid Committee – Writ petition dismissed. (Paras 14, 15 and 16)
JUDGMENT
Mohit Kumar Shah, J. - The present writ petition has been filed seeking the following reliefs:-
"(i) To issue a writ/ order/ direction in the nature of certiorari for quashing the decision of the Technical Bid Committee dated 12.06.2020 in terms of which the tender of the petitioner in relation to Package No. BR33P2R-05 have been held to be unsuccessful on ground of the order of debar dated 27.06.2016 have not yet been withdrawn by the department.
(ii) To hold and declare that once the petitioner having completed the work in relation to which the order of debar was passed in the year 2016 and completion certificate also issued and payment made thereto, the order of debar in relation to the non-completion of the said work becomes redundant and not in existence and hence, cannot be relied for rejecting the technical bid of the petitioner on the basis of the said order of debar.
(iii) To direct the respondent authorities to proceed to consider the technical bid of the petitioner as the responsive and thereafter, proceed to open the financial bid in relation to the work Package no. BR33P2R-05 pursuant to NIT bearing NIT No. RWD/PMGSY-II/RRP-IIHQ/ET19-20/05 dated 07.02.2020.
(iv) To alternatively quash the order of debar dated 27.06.2016 issued under the signature of the Engineer-in-Chief, Rural Works Department, Government of Bihar, Patna by which pursuant to recommendation of the Chief Engineer III, the petitioner was debarred on ground of noncompletion of work within time and prevented from participating in other tenders."
2. The brief facts of the case according to the petitioner are that Rural Works Department, Government of Bihar, through the office of the Engineer in Chief, Rural Works Department issued NIT bearing retender no. RWD/PMGSY-II/RRP-II-HQ/ET-19-20/05 dated 07.02.2020 pertaining to various construction works as detailed therein. The last date & time for receipt of bids through e-tendering was fixed as 24.03.2020 upto 15:00 Hrs. The technical bid was to be opened at 15:30 Hrs. on 24.03.2020. Subsequently, a corrigendum was issued and date of opening of the bid was modified to 12.05.2020. The petitioner had participated in the said NIT for construction work as specified at serial no. 45 of the NIT i.e. 'MRL01- Kowahi to Gidhha via Neori, Sirkhiriya' of PMGSY Phase II bearing Package No.-BR33P2R-05 and had submitted the bid online within the prescribed time. Thereafter, the petitioner had authorized one of its representative to submit the hard copy of the bid in terms of the requirement of the NIT and accordingly the said representative had submitted the same in the office of the Executive Engineer, RWD, Belsand, Sitamarhi on 12.05.2020 itself and the same was received at 14:55 Hrs. i.e. within the time prescribed, as is evident from the receiving provided in the bid submission confirmation itself. Nevertheless, the authorities acted contrary to the terms of the tender and in order to favor an individual bidder namely M/s R.S. Construction, its tender was wrongly accepted, even though the bid documents were submitted after the expiry of the period provided under the tender. The petitioner had objected to such conduct and has also filed a writ petition challenging the acceptance of the bid of the said M/s R.S. Construction, contrary to the terms of the tender.
3. It is the case of the petitioner that the respondent state authorities have been acting in a biased manner in order to favor a particular bidder and have been finding excuses to disqualify the petitioner from the contract in question. Thus, a letter dt. 04.06.2020 was issued by the respondent Executive Engineer, Rural Works Department, Works Division Belsand stating therein that the petitioner, in relation to another work bearing Package No. PMGSY BR-33R-317, was declared defaulter by the order of the Engineer in Chief bearing No. 7779 dated 27.06.2016 and since, the petitioner has not been released from the Order of debarment, hence, the petitioner s
