( 1 ) RULE D. B.

( 2 ) WITH the consent of learned counsel for the parties, the matter is taken up for final disposal.

( 3 ) CHALLENGE in this writ petition is to a pre-qualification condition inserted in the Notice Inviting Tender (for short the NIT ) issued by the Central Warehousing corporation, hereinafter referred to as the CWC, on 10 November 2004 for supply of cwc diary, chemical and technical equipments, including 8000 Kgs of Deltamethrin

( 4 ) 2. 5% WP ARC. The challenge to the condition is laid on the ground of arbitrariness, unreasonableness and irrationality. 4. The factual matrix, in brief, is as follows: as noted above, the CWC floated tender dated 10 November 2004 for supply of various items, including the afore-mentioned chemical for fumigation purposes. The petitioner claims to have learnt about the tender notice on 18 november 2004 from the website of the CWC. Being a major manufacturer of deltamethrin and interested in the supply of the said chemical, the petitioner approached the respondent for issue of tender documents. One of the grievances of the petitioner is that though the last date for submission of the bids was 3 December 2004, the tender documents were issued to them only on 29 November 2004 after several visits to their office.

( 5 ) THE tender documents were purchased by five parties, including the petitioner, who were manufacturing the said chemical. The bids were, however, submitted only by the following three parties: 1. M/s. Bayer Crop Science India Limited (successful bidder) 2. M/s. Gharda Chemicals Limited (Petitioner) 3. M/s. Hernaba Industries Limited

( 6 ) THE petitioner is aggrieved by the following eligibility criteria, as contained in the NIT:

"tenders for chemical will be accepted only from the licensed technical-grade manufacturers, who are actually manufacturing technical formulation and must be having experience of at least 3 years manufacturing of ISI marked chemical. Proof of the same must be enclosed with the tender. The parties shall offer the material strictly conforming in the specifications, terms and conditions of the tender enquiry. The tender not conforming strictly to specifications, other terms and conditions of the tender enquiry and incomplete/conditional tender will summarily be rejected as invalid. Further in order to assess manufacturing facilities available with the tenderers, the inspection facilities may be required and to be arranged by the party at the discretion of the Corporation. . . . " (Highlighted for ready reference)

( 7 ) THE stand of the petitioner is that the condition of "at least three years experience of manufacturing ISI marked chemicals" has been inserted by the CWC with a collateral motive in order to avoid competitive bidding and to ensure that the tender was awarded to M/s. Bayer Crop Science India Limited, hereafter referred to as bayer Crop , who were manufacturing the chemical, though under different corporate names, since the year 1994 and were making supplies in the past. The petitioner was manufacturing the chemical since December 2001 and M/s. Hernaba Industries limited since July 2003. It is alleged that the insertion of pre-qualification condition is aimed at seeing that no other manufacturer, including the petitioner qualifies for the bid as it has BIS certification only for the last two years. In support of their plea that the impugned action is to favour Bayer Crop, it is pointed out in the additional affidavit that one M/s. Hoechst Schering Agro Evo Limited was incorporated on 9 march 1994; its name was changed to Agroevo India Limited on 3 September 1998; on 9 March 2000 the name was changed to Aventis Crop Science India Limited which has now been changed to Bayer Crop with effect from 22 January 2003 and that the tender has again been awarded to Bayer Crop despite the fact that the samples of the same company, under the old corporate name, namely Aventis Crop Science India limited, had failed in the past.

( 8 ) I