Jasti Chelameswar, C.J.

Aggrieved by judgment dated 5.6.09 of a learned Judge of this Court in WP(C) No. 5528/08 the unsuccessful petitioner preferred the present appeal. The petitioner is a proprietary concern. The first respondent is a public limited company. The 2nd and 3rd respondents are the officers of the said company. The first respondent published a notice dated 16.2.08 inviting sealed tenders from reputed and experienced contractors for unloading of bamboo/wood from wagons and shifting the same to the respondent's premises. The bid of the tenderers is required to be in two parts - (1) technical bid and (2) price bid, in two separate sealed covers.

2. Five tenderers responded to the notice, including the appellant. The appellant and the 4th respondent are the two of the above five tenderers.

3. As to the proceedings subsequent to receipt of the tenders the learned Judge recorded his findings at para 7 of the judgment as follows:--

7. The petitioner claims to be a reputed proprietorial firm and submitted its tender in terms of the aforesaid NIT. After opening the tender documents, the concerned authority prepared a comparative statement of the Techno Commercial Bids and forwarded the same for technical scrutiny. The tender committee scrutinized the tenders of all the 5 tenderers and after such, scrutiny, technical recommendation was accorded in favour of the petitioner as well as respondent No. 4 and was placed for further deliberation. The matter was, thereafter, referred to finance department to consider the financial soundness of the tenderers and in turn it recommended to open the price bid of both the petitioner and respondent No. 4 as per its note dated 13.5.08. The matter was, thereafter, further placed before the Internal Audit department of the Corporation. The Internal Audit department, however, not having found applied the same yardstick as regards the consideration of the related tenders submitted by both the tenderers, they were asked to followed the same vide note dated 10.6.08. After consideration in details by the Internal Audit department, it was noticed that there were some deviation in the tender submitted by the petitioner which may lead to its disqualification and the Internal Audit department opined that the Techno Commercial Bid of both the petitioner and respondent No. 4 were found to be disqualified, but by the same note it also intimated for obtaining necessary legal opinion.

In terms of the said note, legal opinion was sought for in respect of acceptability of the tender of the petitioner. The said opinion so furnished disclose that the respondent No. 4 has not fulfilled the NIT conditions and submitted the bid without complying with Clause-9 of the general terms and conditions of the contract. So far the deviation in respect of the petitioner is concerned it was pointed out that in the documents submitted by the petitioner along with the tender it endorsed a stamp of M/s. Shivam Syndicate wherein the petitioner was also a partner and he did not put the required stamp in all the pages. It was opined by the legal expert that the intention of the Bidder appears to be clear, but the deviation was there and taking into consideration of the matter is in its entirety, the deviation is stated to be a minor one. Being minor deviation was appeared in the tender; the legal opinion was given in favour of the petitioner.

It is to be noted herein that in view of the deviation noticed in the tender submitted by the petitioner, a show cause notice dated 14.8.08, was issued to the petitioner asking such clarification and in its reply dated 19.8.08, the petitioner has admitted such deviation with certain explanation. Thereafter, the matter was finally placed before the Chief Executive of the Corporation. Referring to the aforesaid anomalies in respect of the tender submitted inasmuch as the tender committee could not arrive in any final decision in view of the conflicting opinion relating to the suitability of the

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