SUMAN SHYAM, J.

1. Heard Mr. M. Choudhury, learned senior counsel assisted by Mr. A. Kalita, learned counsel for the petitioners. I have also heard Mr. D. Mazumdar, learned Additional Advocate General(AAG), Assam, appearing for the State respondents as well as Mr. A.C. Borbora, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Mr. M. Smith, learned counsel appearing for the respondent no. 4.

2. By filing this writ petition, a challenge has been made to the decision of the respondent no. 3 to reject the technical bid submitted by the Writ Petitioner No. 1 and also the consequent decision to award the contract in favour of the respondent No. 4.

3. The facts giving rise to the filing of the present writ petition, briefly stated, are as follows :-

(I) The writ petitioner no. 1 is a registered partnership firm and the petitioner no. 2 is its constituted attorney. The petitioner no. 1 firm is a registered Class-IA contractor and is eligible to undertake and execute various contractual works under the PWD, Assam.

(II) On 23/02/2017, the respondent no. 3 had issued a Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) inviting bids in two parts, i.e. technical and financial, for awarding contracts in respect of 9 (nine) different packages for maintenance and repairing of road work amounting to Rs. 1385.18 lacs in total.

(III) Responding to the NIT dated 23/02/2017, the petitioner no.1 had submitted its bid in respect of package no 9 viz. DIB/ARME/2016-17/NK/11, i.e. maintenance and repairing of Joypore Faltutulla Road under Naharkatia legislative Assembly Constituency. The approximate value of the package was fixed at Rs. 150.00 lacs.

(IV) The Instruction to Bidders (ITB) lays down the terms and conditions for awarding the contracts, according to which, the last date of submission of bids was fixed on 17/03/2017 at 2.00 p.m. The date of opening the technical bids and their evaluation was fixed on 17/03/2017 at 2-30 p.m. and the date and time for opening of the financial bids was fixed at 11.00 a.m. on 24/03/2017.

(V) The petitioner no. 1 had submitted its bid in respect of package no. 9 in two parts i.e. technical and financial, within the date and time stipulated for submission of the same. In total, three parties including the writ petitioner no 1, the respondent No. 4 and another contractor viz. Kushal Konwar had submitted their bids for the package No 9.

(VI) Although the date and time for opening of the technical bid was fixed at 2-30 p.m. on 17/03/2017, yet, according to the writ petitioners, the same was not done so on the stipulated date and time for reasons not known to them. When the respondent no. 3 had failed to inform the fate of its technical bid despite repeated enquiries made in that regard by the representative of the Petitioner No. 1 firm, a representation was submitted on 01/04/2017 requesting the respondent No.3 to furnish the necessary information relating to status of the tender process.

(VII) On receipt of the representation dated 01/04/2017, the petitioner no 1 was verbally informed that the bid submitted by it had been rejected on technical ground but the respondent no. 3 did not indicate as to the ground on which the technical bid of the Petitioner No. 1 had been rejected. When repeated enquiries made by the writ petitioners had failed to yield any result, the Petitioner No. 1 had submitted a representation before the Departmental Minister on 09/05/2017 seeking an enquiry into the matter.

(VIII) On receipt of the representation dated 09/05/2017, the Departmental Minister had directed an enquiry to be conducted in the matter. Accordingly, a 3 (three) member committee was constituted to look into the matter and the said committee had submitted its report dated 18/04/2017 before the respondent no. 3, inter-alia, mentioning that the technical bids submitted by the petitioner no. 1 and another bidder i.e. Shri Kushal Konwar were found to be technically defective. As per the report dated 18/04/2017, the technical bid of the petitioner No 1 was found to