JUDGMENT :

RAJAN GUPTA, J.

1. The present writ petition has been filed for quashing the decision of the Technical Bid Committee dated 18.05.2021 whereby and where under notice inviting re-tender for construction of different roads under MMGSY has been cancelled. The petitioner has further prayed for opening its financial bid and awarding the contract in question to it.

2. The brief facts of the case are that a notice inviting re-tender i.e. RWD/MMGSY/19/ET/ 2020-21 was issued by the office of the Executive Engineer, Rural Works Department, Work Division, Madhubani inviting tenders for construction of different roads including maintenance thereof.

3. The petitioner is stated to have participated in the NIT and submitted its bid. The petitioner was the single bidder with respect to the construction of road work mentioned at Serial No. 4, 5 and 6 of the NIT. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioner that the technical bid of the petitioner was accepted and thereafter, the respondents were required to open its financial bid, however, the financial bid was never opened and instead a decision was taken to cancel the tender in view of Clause 16 of the NIT.

4. The learned counsel for the petitioner has contended that no notice or information was given to the petitioner prior to cancellation of the tender in question, hence, the tender has been cancelled in an arbitrary manner, thus, the respondents are required to be directed to open the financial bid and award the tender in question to the petitioner firm.

5. Per contra, the learned counsel for the Respondent State has submitted that the Respondents had invited short notice inviting Re-tender i.e. RWD/MMGSY/19/ET/ 2020-21 for construction and maintenance of 9 roads as described in NIT under MMGSY Scheme. Thereafter, the process for accepting the bid was initiated and as far as the petitioner is concerned, it had submitted bids for construction of roads as mentioned at Serial No. 2, 4, 5 and 6 of the N.I.T., acknowledgment whereof was issued to the petitioner. Thereafter, the meeting of the Technical Bid Committee was convened on 18.05.2021 for the purposes of technical evaluation of the bid submitted by the bidders, however, during the course thereof it came to the notice of the Technical Bid Committee that the clause regarding submission of the character certificate by the bidders is missing in the NIT, which is mandatory in light of the departmental letter no. 489 dated 28.01.2021, hence, it was decided to cancel the tender as per Clause 16 of the NIT in order to avoid any dispute in execution of the tender. In such view of the matter, the tender itself was cancelled in the meeting held on 18.05.2021 and the fact remains that the Technical Bid Evaluation Committee neither evaluated the bids of any of the bidders nor it rejected any bid. It has also been submitted that the petitioner has not been declared qualified in the meeting of the Technical Bid Committee held on 18.05.2021. It is also the submission of the learned counsel for the Respondents that a reference has been made to the details uploaded on the Website, annexed as Annexure-5 series to the writ petition, by the learned counsel for the petitioner, however, the same nowhere depicts that the petitioner has been held to be successful in the technical bid, thus the same is of no value to the petitioner. The learned counsel for the Respondents has also referred to the proceedings of the Technical Bid Committee, as contained in Minutes of meeting dated 18.05.2021 (Annexure-B series to the counter affidavit) to show that neither the bids of any of the bidder has been accepted nor rejected and on the contrary, the NIT in question has been cancelled. It is also submitted that after cancellation of the earlier tender in question, fresh short notice inviting re-tender with respect to the same work has been issued on 16.07.2021, in pursuance whereof bids were submitted and the same has also attained finality in as muc