IMPORTANT POINT
Debarment from tender participation must adhere to specific legal guidelines; termination of contract may be justified, but debarment without legal basis is invalid.

JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioner is invoking the extraordinary jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, 1950, challenging the decision taken by the respondents for debarring the petitioner from participating in any tenders called by the respondents for a period of three years as per the order dated 21.09.2022.

2. Shorn of unnecessary details, the petitioner, which is engaged in the business of providing services for maintenance and manpower outsourcing services in the sports wing of DDA[Delhi Development Authority] since 2011, was issued a work order in terms of tender issued for the deployment of a Plumber/fitter at Commonwealth Games Village Sports Complex [“CWGVSC”] for a period of 12 months to be reckoned from 01.02.2020, for the tender amount of Rs. 3,33,975/- and it is stated that the work order remained in existence upto 10.09.2021. It appears that there was one Plumber employed by the petitioner (hereinafter referred by the pseudonym name ‘X’) and the case of the petitioner is that the Plumber was marking his attendance but was not physically present at the site and he was not even wearing proper uniform during the duty hours, which was required to be worn in terms of the NIT[Notice Inviting Tender] and that X used to leave the site after marking attendance besides engaging in heated arguments with the Supervisors during working hours, and therefore, the said Plumber was called to the office and was fired from the job after 10.09.2021 in terms of the notice dated 11.08.2021. It appears that when the petitioner intimated to the respondents about the termination of services of the Plumber and allowed them to engage another Plumber vide email dated 07.09.2021, the respondents issued a Show Cause Notice [“SCN”] dated 01.11.2021 to call upon the petitioner to explain as to why their contract be not terminated for terminating the services of the Plumber without their permission, alleging violation of Clause 66 of the NIT.

3. It is stated that the petitioner filed a reply dated 14.11.2021 and after affording a personal hearing on 25.07.2022, the impugned order dated 21.09.2022 was passed whereby the petitioner had been debarred from participating in the tenders called by the Sports Wing of the DDA for a period of three years from 21.09.2022.

4. The respondents in their counter-affidavit filed through Mr. Dharmendra Sharma, Director, Sports, DDA has sought to justify the impugned order dated 21.09.2022 alluding to the terms & conditions of the contract and pointing out that the public notice and order dated 16.04.2021 had been issued by the DDMA[District Disaster Management Authority (East)] whereby the CWGVSC was declared as “extended COVID Care Facility” for housing and treatment of COVID[Coronoavirus Disease-2019] patients, which required crucial role to be played by the frontline workers such as Plumber at the COVID-Care Centre for maintenance of water supplies, water fitting etc. at such critical and unforeseen times. It is stated that since no prior permission was taken before terminating the services of Plumber “X”, not only contract was terminated but the petitioner was debarred from participating in tenders to be floated by the respondents for a period of three years.

ANALYSIS & DECISION:

5. I have given my thoughtful consideration to the submissions advanced by the learned counsels for the parties. I have also gone through the relevant records of the instant case.

6. First things first, it would be relevant to reproduce the impugned order dated 21.09.2022, which reads as under:

3. CWGVSC was required to provide the housekeeping and allied manpower for 'COVID Care Centre', as per the letter of DM /DDMA East District Delhi. Plumber with detailed knowledge of plumbing and pipelines at CWGVSC was critical for maintenance of the COVID Care Centre, yet M/s Gayatri decided to remove plumber from its roll and did not pay his dues.

4. Due to the above violations of Clauses 47(a) to (e), Show Cause Notice