IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that while state actions in contractual matters must adhere to principles of fairness and reasonableness, arbitrary debarment from future tenders without due process violates constitutional rights.

JUDGMENT :

HON’BLE MR JUSTICE ARUN DEV CHOUDHURY

Heard Mr. KN Choudhury, learned Senior counsel assisted by Mr. BJ Ghosh, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Mr. BK Singh, learned standing counsel for the FCI.

2. The brief fact of the case:

The respondent FCI invited e-tender on 01.11.2017 for the construction of Cement Concrete Road proposed to be around 4 numbers of existing Food Storage Godowns at FSD, Ramnagar, Silchar, Cachar with an estimated cost of Rs. 2,26,10,750/-, which is to be completed within a period of 90 days. The petitioner, a Class-1 contractor participated in the NIT. The petitioner submitted his quoted bid value of Rs. 2,38,12,642/-, which was accepted by the respondent FCI through their letter dated 27.02.2018. Thereafter, the respondent FCI requested the petitioner to arrange for Design Mix M-30 from any renowned Government Engineering College and the same was done by the petitioner. Thereafter, NIT, Silchar evaluated the M-30 design mix and submitted the report to FCI on 27.04.2018 but no approval was given to the petitioner and asked the petitioner for fresh M-30 Design mix from NIT Silchar and accordingly the petitioner submitted the sample material for evaluation to NIT Silchar. Again, the respondent FCI vide letter dated 14.12.2018 asked the petitioner for fresh evaluation of the M-30 Design Mix from NIT Silchar in presence of Junior Engineer. The respondent FCI again vide letter dated 28.01.2019 asked for a fresh evaluation report of the M-30 Design Mix from IIT, Guwahati which was received on 20.03.2020. According to the the petitioner, he had made several communications with FCI for delay in starting of the remaining work due to the non approval of the M-30 Design Mix, but the respondent FCI vide letter dated 04.03.2020 issued show cause notice on the petitioner which was replied by the petitioner through his letter dated 13.05.2020, denying the allegations made in the show cause notice and the petitioner expressed his desire to complete the work in the event the respondent FCI agrees to enhance 30 % from the quoted rate to restart the remaining works due to the increase of price of materials in last 24 months, which is beyond the date of completion. Thereafter, the petitioner filed WP(C) 3907/2020, however, such writ petition was withdrawn by the petitioner with a liberty to file a fresh petition in order to assail the termination order dated 08.06.2020 and the petitioner filed fresh writ petition being WP(C)4856/2020 challenging the impugned final notice dated 08.06.2020, which was also withdrawn as the respondent FCI issued impugned tender notice dated 20.11.2020 with a liberty to file fresh petition challenging the final notice dated 08.06.2020.Accordingly, the petitioner filed this writ petition.

3. The facts pleaded by the petitioner:

I. On 01.11.2017, Executive Director on behalf of Food Corporation of India invited e-tender for construction of Cement Concrete Road proposed to be executed around 4 numbers of existing Food Storage Godowns at FSD, Ramnagar. Respondent authority accepted the offer of the petitioner vide letter dated 23.02.2018.

II. On 14.03.2018, the petitioner was requested to execute formal agreement and take possession of the work site and to start the work and also asked to arrange for Design Mix M-30 from any renowned Government Engineering College and on 19.03.2018, a contract agreement was executed between the petitioner and the respondent authority.

III. Thereafter, the petitioner submitted petition on 28.04.2018 informing the authority that work site clearly not handed over and it has affected the WBM and concrete work held up for quite long time and the work was delayed.

IV. On 18.05.2018, the petitioner again informed the respondent authority that the work could not be proceeded further due to heavy rain and vehicle are running in the construction area.

V. Thereafter, the respondent authority received the report of Mix Design M-30 from NIT Silchar but could not be