ORDER

Heard Mr. Prabhat Ranjan, learned counsel for the petitioner and Ms. Archana Meenakshee for the State.

2. The petitioner, a successful bidder at the technical stage, has challenged the order dated 20.11.2019, issued under the signature of the Enquiry Committee of which the Engineer in Chief, Rural Works Department, Patna is the Chairman, whereby the technical bid has been directed to be re-evaluated and an explanation has been asked for holding the bid of the petitioner and one Chandan Kumar to be responsive to the Notice Inviting Tender.

3. It appears that against the NIT for a work in Gogari Division, namely, for construction of road for a particular distance, four tenderers including the petitioner furnished their papers. In the technical bid, two were declared to be unsuccessful, whereas the petitioner and one Chandan Kumar were found to be successful. Their financial bid also was opened. However, on a complaint lodged by one of the tenderers, an enquiry was conducted by a committee comprising Engineer in Chief also which found that the petitioner and Chandan Kumar both were wrongly declared to be successful in the technical bid. The reason for upturning the decision of holding the petitioner’s bid to be responsive to the NIT was that as against the earnest money, the petitioner had furnished NSC which was of an older antiquity to the NIT. The other ground for holding the bid of the petitioner to be unresponsive was that the affidavit with respect to the availability of minimum key equipment for the concerned work was also prior to the date of issuance of notice. Thus, the technical bid of all the four tenderers were found to be unresponsive and a decision was taken by the Committee to send the technical bid for re-evaluation.

4. Mr. Prabhat Ranjan, learned counsel for the petitioner has challenged the aforesaid order on several grounds, but primarily on the issue that once the financial bid was opened, the rates offered by the petitioner became public. No purpose would then be served in re-evaluating the technical bid.

5. The other ground of challenge is that there is no requirement for furnishing of the earnest money/NSC which is contemporaneous or later than the date of issuance of NIT as per its terms. Even with respect to the affidavit regarding key equipments, if there was any flaw in the same, it could have corrected/rectified by the petitioner. Before cancelling the technical bid of the petitioner, he was required to be noticed.

6. Thus, the reasons for which the bid of the petitioner was held to be non-responsive and that also after the opening of the financial bid was not a decision which could be countenanced under any circumstance. It is for this reason that the present writ petition has been filed seeking a direction to the respondents to accept the bid of the petitioner and assign the work to him.

7. As opposed to the aforesaid contentions, it has been urged on behalf of the State that an enquiry was conducted by the Engineer-in-Chief, who constituted a Committee of which he also was a part, which found that the bid of the petitioner was not responsive for the two reasons, which have been recounted above.

8. In that view of the matter, even if the financial bid was opened, the two tenderers, who were in the fray, could not have altered their financial offers.

9. Learned counsel for the petitioner however submits that the aforesaid issues do not find any echo in the counter affidavit and therefore, if such grounds are being relied upon for dismissing the case of the petitioner, the petitioner ought to have given a chance to rejoin.

10. The aforesaid request of the petitioner is absolutely unfounded. A decision is made on the pleadings and on the assessment of the Court of the facts of the case. It is not always necessary for the opportunity to a petitioner to rejoin if there is no dispute with respect to any factual aspect of the case.

11. The grounds urged with respect to the jurisdiction of the Engineer in Chief