( 1 ) RULE. With the consent of the parties the petition is taken up for final hearing and is accordingly being disposed of.

( 2 ) THE petitioner is seeking the quashing of the order of the Respondent in refloating the limited tender allegedly ignoring the claim of the petitioner. The petitioner also seeks a direction awarding the tender in favour of the petitioner.

( 3 ) RESPONDENT No. 5 (Directorate General of Ordnance Services, hereinafter referred to as DGOS) floated a tender enquiry on 20. 2. 2001 for 39 tester fuel injector pumps ( hereinafter referred to as the said goods) as per specifications detailed in the said tender enquiry and specified in appendix "e "in the tender enquiry documents. Thereafter, by a letter dated 23. 3. 2001 addressed to the petitioner, the respondent No. 1 invited the petitioner to submit its tender, if it so desired, by the closing date which was 1000 hours on 14. 3. 2001. The petitioner in response to the said tender enquiry and invitation submitted its offer for the said goods.

( 4 ) IT is an admitted fact that the petitioner firm is not registered with respondent No. 5 (DGOS) as a defence supplier for the said goods. In this connection it would be pertinent to refer to the Joint Services Guide on Assessment and Registration of Vendors for Defence (JSG: 015:02:1995) issued by the Directorate of Standardisation, Department of Defence Production and Supplies, Ministry of Defence, New Delhi. The said Joint Services Guide lays down the guidelines for capacity assessment, vendor grading, vendor rating and registration of manufacturers for defence. This guide has been prepared by the Directorate General of Quality Assurance (hereinafter referred to DGQA) for use in defence and has been issued on the authority of the Standardisation Committee, Ministry of Defence. As mentioned in paragraph 1 of the said Joint Services Guide, defence equipments and stores are subjected to a wide variety of end uses under varying operational and climatic conditions. Defence also has very special and critical requirements of storage, transportation, ease of maintenance/repair and ever changing personnel to operate and maintain the equipment. It is further stated in the said paragraph that it is essential that quality and product reliability of defence equipment should be of a very high order and that to a large measure, the quality and reliability of products depend on the technical components and capacity of the vendors. It is further stated therein that due to the special requirements of defence, the task of capacity assessment and registration of the vendors for stores and equipments is more exacting for defence use than for common civil users.

( 5 ) WHILE the said Joint Services Guide is intended to give general guidelines for carrying out vendor assessment of new/potential defence suppliers and grading them based on their assessed capabilities for initial registration and for its periodic renewal, special situations may also arise where purchase agencies advertise tenders and non-registered firms offer competitive quotations. To meet these special situations provisions have been made in paragraph 24 of the said Joint Services Guide.

( 6 ) RESPONDENT No. 4 (Directorate General Quality Assurance) through its Collectorate of Quality Assurance Engineering Equipment, Aundh Camp, Pune (hereinafter referred as CGAE) by a letter dated 16. 5. 2001 gave its vetting comments on the quotations in respect of the said goods against the said tender enquiry dated 20. 2. 2001. From the said letter it is clear that five quotations had been received and the same were scrutinised with respect to the governing specification No. CGAE/4910/1452 (which was appendix E to the tender enquiry document ). It is further clear that out of the five quotations received three were considered to be technically acceptable. The petitioner firm, along with Mico Limited and Indian Machine Tools, was amongst the three found to be tech