IMPORTANT POINT
The paramount consideration for settlement of a fishery is public interest, and the court emphasized the importance of transparency, fair play, and compliance with previous court orders in such matters.

JUDGMENT :

SANJAY KUMAR MEDHI, J.

1. The extra ordinary jurisdiction conferred by Article 226 of the Constitution of India is sought to be invoked by filing this writ petition pertaining to the settlement of a fishery namely, 3-A Lower Brahmaputra Min Mahal aka 3-Ka Lower Brahmaputra Min Mahal (hereinafter the Fishery). The petitioner has specifically challenged an order dated 08.10.2018 whereby such settlement has been made in favour of the respondent no. 7 and some adverse comments have been made with regard to the bid of the petitioner.

2. There is a chequered history in this case and the background facts are narrated in brief for the sake of convenience.

3. The projected case in the petition is that the petitioner is a registered cooperative society in the district of Kamrup consisting of 100% fisherman belonging to the Schedule Caste and is represented by its Secretary, Shri Bhupen Chandra Das.

4. Pursuant to a Notice Inviting Tender dated 29.06.2017 for settlement of the Fishery in question for 7 (seven) years, the petitioner society had submitted its bid along with 5 (five) other bidders including the respondent no. 7. Consequently, a comparative statement was prepared in which the bid of the petitioner was held to be valid and the bid of the respondent no. 7 was held to be incomplete. However, vide a communication dated 10.08.2017, there was a direction to issue a fresh tender notice for the said Fishery by the Fishery Department as some anomalies were found in the proposal submitted with a further stipulation that the existing lessee would run the Fishery at 10% enhanced rate.

5. The aforesaid action in the form of the communication dated 10.08.2017 was the subject matter of challenge by the petitioner in WP(C)/5001 of 2017. The respondent no. 7, through its Secretary had also instituted WP(C)/4896 of 2017 challenging its disqualification pursuant to the NIT dated 29.06.2017. Another writ petition was instituted by the respondent no. 7 being WP(C)/7934 of 2017.

6. All the aforesaid 3 (three) writ petitions were disposed of by this Court vide a common order dated 29.05.2018. It was directed that a fresh decision be taken by the State respondents on the basis of the records available as to whether the petitioner in that case (respondent no. 7 herein) had submitted the documents fulfilling the requirements of Experience Certificate in the name of the Society as well as Caste Certificate. It was further observed that with regard to the Bakijai Certificate, no further consideration was required to be made by the State respondents as the said Bakijai Certificate was part of the records which was mixed up with the tender papers of another bidder.

7. Subsequently, the petitioner herein has instituted another writ petition WP(C)/5185 of 2018 for registering a criminal case against an official of the Department and not to settle the Fishery in question with the respondent no. 7. The said writ petition was disposed of vide an order dated 30.08.2018 whereby it was observed that since as per the records, settlement order was yet to be issued, interference at that stage was not justified. Accordingly, the authorities were directed to finalize the settlement process of the fishery in question in accordance with law.

8. Subsequent to the aforesaid directions of this Court, the Fishery Department has passed an order dated 08.10.2018 as per which, the bid of the respondent no. 7, on re-examination was found to be valid and considering its financial bid which was Rs. 1,48,47,777/- (One Crore Forty Eight Lakh Forty Seven Thousand Seven Hundred Seventy Seven) only the settlement was made in its favour for a period of 7 (seven) years. The bid of the petitioner was however held to be invalid as the Bakijai Certificate and Fishing Experience Certificate were held to be not issued by the competent authority. Consideration of the financial bid of the petitioner which was Rs. 36,47,000/- (Rupees Thirty Six Lakh Forty Seven Thousand) only was also made a