Blacklisting an entity for submission of forged bid documents is justified when the act impacts bid integrity; vicarious liability applies to employers for employee misconduct in the course of their duties.

JUDGMENT :

JYOTI SINGH, J.

1. By this writ petition, Petitioner lays siege to letter/order dated 07.06.2024 issued by Respondent No. 1/New Delhi Municipal Council (‘NDMC’), whereby Petitioner has been blacklisted by NDMC and debarred from participating in any bid in NDMC for a period of 02 years from the date of issue of the letter. Petitioner seeks writ of mandamus to direct NDMC not to publish the impugned letter on its website or to take down the same, if already published as also not to take further coercive action during pendency of Complaint Case No. 3100/2024, titled ‘CCS Computers Private Limited v. State & Ors.’, pending before the Trial Court and return the bank guarantee amount.

2. Case set up by the Petitioner is that Petitioner is a company incorporated under the Companies Act, 1956 engaged in the business of providing IT services with vast experience in the industry. Petitioner has successfully provided IT related services to various Government entities including but not limited to Indian Navy, Army Headquarters Computer Centre, Ministry of Home Affairs, DRDO and Ministry of Science & Technology. Petitioner is a MSME organization duly registered under the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Development Act, 2006.

3. It is averred that Education Department of NDMC vide Request for Proposal (‘RFP’) floated a tender for procurement of 4,159 pre-loaded electronic tablets on Government E-Marketplace (‘GeM’) on 28.05.2022. To participate in the tender, Respondent No. 2/Datamini Technologies (India) Ltd., which was the ‘Original Equipment Manufacturer’ (‘OEM’), authorized the Petitioner to negotiate and conduct the entire process of bidding on its behalf and for this purpose issued a bid specific Manufacturer’s Authorization Form dated 21.06.2022. As per the authorization given by Respondent No. 2 through its representative namely, Sh. Chandan Kumar, Petitioner participated in the bidding process and submitted the bid along with requisite documents on GeM portal and also furnished a Bank Guarantee dated 22.06.2022, for a sum of Rs.18,71,550/- in favour of NDMC.

4. It is stated that after the bid was submitted, NDMC vide e-mail dated 02.09.2022 informed the Petitioner that the Turnover Certificate of Respondent No. 2, submitted as part of the bid documents, appeared to be forged and Petitioner was asked to verify the correctness of the certificate. Shocked with this revelation, Petitioner proceeded to inquire into the veracity of the allegation from its employees who were involved in the bid submission process. On 05.09.2022, Petitioner called for a written explanation from two of its employees namely, Sh. Sunil Kumar Srivastava and Sh. Puspendra Singh with respect to the alleged forgery in the Turnover Certificate. Additionally, considering the gravity of the situation, Petitioner held a meeting of its Board of Directors on 05.09.2022, wherein a Resolution was passed for conducting a detailed inquiry into the conduct of the delinquent employees who had submitted the bid documents, on instructions of and in connivance with Sh. Chandan Kumar, an employee of Respondent No. 2.

5. It is averred that to ensure that the inquiry process was unbiased, an advocate, who had no relation with the Petitioner and was an independent person, was nominated as an Inquiry Officer vide letter dated 05.09.2022, who conducted a detailed inquiry by issuing formal notices to the employees involved in the bidding process. Four employees were examined in the inquiry, after receiving their written responses on 08.09.2022. Sh. Sunil Ku