( 1 ) RULE D. B.

( 2 ) WITH the consent of learned counsel for the parties, we have taken up the matter for final disposal at this stage itself.

( 3 ) CHALLENGE in this writ petition is to the decision of the Mahanagar Telephone Nigam ltd. (for short" MTNL") not to open the bid documents submitted by the petitioner in response to their invitation to tender for appointment of contractors for Optical Fibre cables laying by trenching and trenchless technology and allied works. The petitioner seeks a direction to the MTNL to open its techno commercial bid as well as the financial bid and consider the same in the manner contemplated in the notice inviting tender (for short, "the NIT" ).

( 4 ) FACTUAL matrix as projected in the petition, in brief, is as follows: on or about 5 June 2004 MTNL floated a tender for laying Optical Fibre Cables by the aforementioned techniques for a length of around 600 kms. The tender document had two Sections. Section-I, captioned as NIT, inter-alia, contained the basic eligibility conditions, details of area wise works, time and last date of submission of bids and the schedule of Tender. Section-II contained twenty two instructions to bidders