JUDGMENT :

RAI CHATTOPADHYAY, J.

1. The letter impugned dated September 19, 2022, of termination of contract and forfeiture of the earnest money deposit of the petitioner, to the tune of Rs.11,94,000/- has been challenged by the petitioner in the instant writ petition, on the grounds inter-alia of arbitrariness, fraud by suppression of material facts to initiate the tender by the respondent authority and violation of the principles of natural justice in case of the petitioner, having not granted the proprietors of the firm an opportunity of hearing, before termination of the contract.

2. Relevant background facts are like this. The respondent No. 3/the Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Eastern Railway, Sealdah Division invited tender, for the purpose of awarding license for operation of composite parking lot No.SDAH at Sealdah railway station, for a period of three years. The closing date for submission of bid was July 4, 2022. The area in which the license holder shall commence the parking operation, would be comprising of 1890 square meters. According to the writ petitioner, it was incumbent upon the respondent/Railways to hand over to it, that is the successful bidder, an unencumbered possession of the demarcated stipulated area of land to start the operation, at the initiation of the contract. Instead, the Railways acted negligently and against the norms, by not handing over the unencumbered demarcated area of the land, in spite of, entering into an agreement with the petitioner and accepting the earnest money from it. Allegedly, the area map published at the time of publication of tender was not an up-to-date one and did not reveal the exact position of the land as on the date. That, allegedly since the map published with the tender was outdated, pertaining to the year 2014, no encroachment thereon could be comprehended from the said map as enclosed with the tender document, whereas practically 1000 square meter area from the total 1890 square meters, was actually encroached by the outsiders, rendering initiation of the operation under tender virtually impossible. That the petitioner’s representations dated August 24 and September 5 of 2022, remained unattended whereas in spite of extending the time period of the bid of the petitioner by 45 days vide letter dated August 17, 2022, on the same date that is August 17, 2022, the respondent No.3 issued to the petitioner a ‘letter of acceptance’, directing him to execute the license agreement on non-judicial stamp paper, within 15 days from the date of the said letter of acceptance.

3. The petitioner could never start the operation by executing a license agreement as sought for by the respondent. The reason it attributes to the failure on part of the respondent to create a conducive condition by performing the essential conditions, for the successful bidder to initiate the tender specified job. In this way according to the writ petitioner, paragraphs 1.2 and 1.3 of the Commercial Circular No.4 of 2014, published by the Director, Traffic Commercial (G), Railway Board, have been violated. Then comes the termination order issued against the petitioner dated September 19, 2022. The same not only terminate any contract of the petitioner with the respondent railway for the said specified job, but also directs for forfeiture of the earnest money deposited by the petitioner to the tune of Rs.11,94,000/- due to alleged non-performance of the contract. Thus the petitioner is aggrieved and files the instant writ petition through the proprietors.

4. Mr. Roy learned advocate has represented the writ petitioner. He has submitted firstly, that the letter issued by the respondent dated August 17, 2022, though has been referred to as the ‘letter of acceptance’, is not of that nature having traits of a concluded contract, but should be considered only as an offer letter. He submits with reference to the said document as annexed in the instant writ petition that substantially the said letter does