Harish Kumar, J. – We have heard Mr. Ashish Giri, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Amish Jha, learned Government Advocate.

2. The writ petitioner, a registered Class-I contractor under the Rural Works Division, Government of Bihar on being aggrieved by the order of blacklisting as contained in Memo No. 668 dated 06.02.2024, has preferred the present writ petition seeking quashing of the same, issued under the signature of respondent No. 3 by which the petitioner has been blacklisted for four years.

3. The short facts which led to the filing of the writ petition are that in response to the NIT dated 16.08.2023, which dealt with various construction works including the work at Sl. No. 16 for construction of RCC HL bridge at 3rd Km of Kamalpur Kanuali Road, in the district of Supaul, the petitioner submitted his tender. The value of the work was of Rs. 629.792 lakhs.

4. As per the instructions of the bidders, Class-IV provided for the qualification criteria of the bidder. The relevant criteria for the present case being Clause 4.5 contemplates as follows: –

"Satisfactorily completed as a prime contractor (or as a nominated subcontractor, where the subcontract involved execution of all main items of work described in the bid document, provided further that all the other qualification criteria are satisfied) at least one similar work of value not less than amount indicated in Appendix (usually not less than 25% (twenty five percent) of estimated value of contract)."

5. In terms of Clause 4.5 (b), the minimum value of the satisfactorily completed work was to be 25 per cent of the estimated value of contract, which came to Rs. 157.448 lakhs. The writ petitioner applied for the work at Sl. No. 16 of the NIT. In support of the experience criteria, the writ petitioner submitted an experience certificate bearing Letter No. 830 dated 21.07.2023 duly issued under the signature of the Executive Engineer, Rural Works Department, Works Division Virpur, Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer. The experience certificate discloses the final bill value (construction) to the tune of Rs. 340.42980 lakhs which in the submission of the writ petitioner was beyond the minimum 25 per cent as required.

6. The evaluation of the tender bids of the participants was conducted by the Technical Bid Committee. The Technical Bid Committee after scrutiny of bid documents declared the petitioner disqualified as per Clause 4.5 (b) of the Information to Bidder of the SBD. The Technical Bid Committee rejected the technical bid of the petitioner on two grounds firstly, the paper submitted in the tender which included an affidavit of key personal was found misleading and hence, false representation. Secondly, the experience certificate submitted by the petitioner is of ongoing work which was verified from the Technical Advisor, Rural Works Department, Work Division, Madhepura vide Letter No. 8828 dated 15.12.2023.

7. Mr. Ashish Giri, learned Advocate for the petitioner adverting to the aforesaid facts urged before this Court that the rejection of the technical bid on the grounds of false representation or misleading facts is in complete disregard to the principles of natural justice, besides that it also suffers from vice of arbitrariness. The Technical Bid Committee never sought any explanation regarding the said certificate of ongoing work before rejecting the technical bid of the petitioner irrespective of the fact that the experience certificate was issued by the Executive Engineer, Assistant Engineer and Junior Engineer or the Rural Works Department.

8. Learned Advocate for the petitioner further contended that the department has taken a conscious decision vide its memo no. 6310 dated 12.12.2023 to re-tender the process and accordingly, re-tender was issued on 21.12.2023. The petitioner did not proceed to challenge the rejection of his technical bid, however, despite having taken a decision for retender, a show-cause notice has been issued to the petitioner vi