Heard Mr. Anil Kumar Sinha, Senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner assisted by Mr. Abhay Prakash, Advocate.

2. Heard Ms. Aprajita Bhardwaj, counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent-State.

2. This Writ petition has been filed for the following relief :-

“Quashing the decision dated 11.04.2018 (Annexure-5) of the Tender Committee of the Drinking Water and Sanitation Department, Government of Jharkhand, Ranchi pursuant to Invitation of the BIDS having Tender reference no. Dhanbad – 1/O & M/ - 14/2017-18 (5th Call) by the respondent Department, whereby and where under the respondents have arbitrarily rejected the technical bid of the petitioner solely on the reason that Joint Venture (JV) partners does not have experience related to similar nature of works in terms of clause 4.5 A (b) of the Bid Document ITB (Instruction to Bidders).

(b) Quashing the subsequent Tender Notice dated 26.04.2018 (Annexure-6) having reference no. Dhanabad – 1/O&M/14/2017-18 (6th call) issued by the Executive Engineer, Drinking Water and Sanitation Division-1 Dhanbad published on 28.04.2018 is daily news paper inviting bids for same work, caption as “Operation and Maintenance of 77 MLD WTP at Bhelatand, 14.5 MLD WTP at Maithan with back wash recovery system, Intake works at Gogna, Maithan Dam, Raw water rising mains 1000mm dia D.I. k-9 44 kms, from Maithan Dam to Bhelatand WTP and 450 mm dia D.I. k-9, 8 Kms to Maithan WTP, clear water rising mains, D.I. k-9 800 mm to 250 mm 48 kms, clear water distribution mains 600 mm to 100mm dia 341 kms in Dhanbad city, 300 mm to 100mm dia 81 km in Chirkunda area, Dhanbad, Govindpur & Nirsa and water supply from 27 nos. of existing ESR under Dhanbad Water supply scheme phase – 1 & 2 for the year 2018-19 & 2019-20 excluding the energy cost.”

(c) Subsequent thereto, to command upon the respondents authorities to take a decision in terms of clause 163 (a) note-4 of the Jharkhand PWD Code 2012 and 4.17 of the Central Vigilance Commission’s guidelines, to grant the above said work in terms of Invitation of Bids (5th Call) to the petitioner (if otherwise the petitioner is eligible) who have been qualifying as single tenderer in the 2nd, 3rd and 4th calls of the Department for the said work in the interest of public at large.”

And

During the pendency of the present writ petition, the respondents’ authorities should be restrained to take any action in furtherance of the notice inviting bids dated 26.4.2018.”

3. Counsel for the petitioner submits that that petitioner is class-I registered contractor in Drinking Water and Sanitation Department, Government of Jharkhand and has been undertaking various work as joint venture firm. He submits that for the work in question i.e., operation and maintenance work under Dhanbad water supply scheme phase-I and phase – II, the petitioner’s firm was the lead partner in joint venture and had entered into an agreement with the respondent department for the years 2013-14 & 2014– 15 and since thereafter the petitioner has been executing the said work upon time extension being granted by the department.

4. Thereafter, notice inviting bid for the said work was issued by the respondent department and the petitioner has been participating as a joint venture but in spite of petitioner having all the eligibility criteria for the work in terms of the tender notice, the work could not be allocated to the petitioner by the department for one reason or the other and for continuous four calls the petitioner was declared technically eligible.

5. Thereafter, the 5th call inviting bid was given by the department on 22.08.2017 and in order to participate in the tender, the petitioner entered into a joint venture agreement on 09.10.2017 with M/s Teekey Management and Pragati Engineering Industrial Services and the petitioner’s firm i.e., Abhay Kumar Sinha was the lead partner in the said joint venture and the petitioner in terms of the joint venture agreement submitted its bid.

6. However, i