No bidder has a vested right to be allotted a particular contract, and decisions made in larger public interest may override the claims of individual bidders.

SANJEEV SACHDEVA, J

1. The present writ petition has been filed by the petitioner seeking quashing of the office order dated 11.12.2013 whereby the respondent no. 1 has cancelled the tender for car parking lots surrounding Connaught Place (Group – II) and parking lots at South-West (Group–III). The petitioner has also sought a writ of mandamus, as a consequence of the petitioner’s emerging as the highest bidder, directing the respondent-NDMC to award the tenders for car parking lot to the petitioner and to restrain the respondent-NDMC from awarding the tender to any other person or to respondent no. 2.

2. The case of the petitioner is that the respondent no. 1 had invited tenders for the above parking lots. The last date for submission of the tenders and opening of the technical bids was 29.10.2013. On 06.11.2013, the technical bids were scrutinized and the petitioner was found successful. However, on 28.11.2013, the petitioner’s bid was rejected and the final evaluation was fixed for 29.11.2013. On 29.11.2013, the petitioner filed a petition being WP(C) No. 7546/2013 for quashing the decision rejecting the petitioner’s bid. Vide order dated 06.12.2013, the writ petition was allowed and the respondent-NDMC was directed to open the petitioner’s bid and to evaluate the bid of the petitioner. It is contended that the petitioner was informed on 28.01.2014 that on account of administrative reasons, the tender had been cancelled. As per the petitioner, the petitioner was the highest bidder and the tender had been cancelled to deprive the petitioner of the said tender.

3. As per the petitioner, Delhi Integrated Multi Modern Transit System (DIMTS) the respondent no. 2 has been introduced and is being allotted the said contract without following the tender process. The petitioner has contended that the petitioner being the highest bidder is entitled to the award of the tender and the respondent no. 1 could not have, without any rhyme or reason, cancelled the tender. It is also contended that the move to award the said tender to respondent No. 2 is arbitrary and without any legal basis and is to deny the petitioner the benefit of the order of this Court allowing the earlier petition filed by the petitioner.

4. The respondent-NDMC has filed its counter affidavit and has contended that the petitioner has no legally enforceable or vested right to the award of tender. It is contended that the NDMC with a view to improving the parking facilities for the general public has come up with a policy governing allotment of parking sites/parking lots in the NDMC area. The policy has been introduced in larger public interest and in view of the multifarious shortcomings and dismal situation prevailing in the allotment of sites to private contractors. As per the NDMC, their past experience has shown that the contractors operating in most of the parking sites in the NDMC area were invariably squeezing as many cars as possible in the parking lots even though that meant encroachment on the adjacent public spaces/land in order to maximize profits at public costs. The contractors were mostly employing conventional methods of parking by purely manual operation which did not ensure safety for women, senior citizens and disabled persons or the vehicles and the contractors were invariably avoiding payment of licence fee on some pretext or the other thereby resulting in huge arrears of licence fee causing revenue loss besides entangling NDMC in multifarious litigations by means of raising frivolous and baseless disputes. Complaints qua over-charging were received and there was no system of ascertaining the revenue generated by the parking sites. It is contended that a few handful of contractors had virtually monopolized the parking operations thereby throwing the NDMC at the mercy of the contractors with very little, say in operations after the sites were allotted. This resulted in formation of a cartel at the time of bidding thereby affecting fair and