Point of law: Court must exercise its discretionary power under Article 226 with great caution and should exercise it only in furtherance of public interest and not merely on the making out of a legal point.

ORDER :

1. Being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the decision of respondent-department as contained in Annexure P-8, available at page 113 of the paper book, whereby techno-commercial bid submitted by the joint venture found by the M/s Shri Shyam Construction Company with M/s AGR Engineers and M/s Deepanshu Gautam, came to be rejected on the ground that bid capacity of the lead partner and credit facility of one of the partners has not been attached, petitioner has approached this Court in the instant proceedings filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, praying therein for following main reliefs:

(i) That the writ in the nature of Certiorari or any other appropriate writ order or directions may kindly be issued for quashing and setting aside the impugned Summary dated 02.12.2021 contained in Annexure P-8. Any further action taken after the rejection of the bid of the Petitioner Joint Venture may also be quashed and set aside.

(ii) That a writ in the nature of Mandamus or any other appropriate writ order or directions may kindly be issued directing the Respondents to treat the techno commercial bid as qualified and further consider the Petitioner as qualified for the financial bid.

(iii) That a writ in the nature of Mandamus or any other appropriate writ order or directions may kindly be issued directing the Respondents to consider the bid of the Petitioner for awarding the work as prescribed in the tender document, being the lowest bidder.

2. For having bird’s eye view, certain undisputed facts, which may be relevant for the adjudication of the case are that Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Limited, published an advertisement in the lead national Newspaper issuing notice inviting tender for execution of the following four works:

3. Perusal of the aforesaid document reveals that department concerned invited online tender for the works detailed herein above on the prescribed format. Petitioner-firm participated in three tenders detailed at Sr. No. 1 to 3. As per notice inviting ender, last date of the receipt of the bid was 23.11.2021, and date of opening of the techno-commercial bid was 24.11.2021. Vide order dated 22.11.2021 (Annexure RA-3), Junior Engineer Operation (North) Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board Limited, Dharamshala, constituted a committee headed by the Chief Engineer Operation (North) Dharamshala, for opening and evaluation of the techno-commercial bids of the participating firms. Though petitioner firm had participated and submitted the tender/bids for three works out of four tender works, but in the case at hand, dispute has been only raised with regard to following tender:

4. Committee after having perused the commercial bids by participating firms prepared the comparative statements of all the participating firms as is evident from Annexure RA-4. Since lead partner of the petitioner-joint venture i.e. Shyam Construction, failed to attach/annexe the details of works executed in the last seven years and als