An employer is liable for the fraudulent acts of its employees, justifying blacklisting under tender conditions for submission of forged documents.

ORDER :

S. Sounthar, J.

The writ petition is filed challenging the order passed by the 2^nd respondent, blacklisting the petitioner for a period of two years from participating in the tenders floated by the 2^nd respondent.

2. The petitioner has been in long standing relationship with the second respondent, as he came out successful in number of tenders floated by the second respondent for supplying the equipments to various Hospitals.

3. The issue involved in this writ petition pertains to the following three tenders:

4. It is the case of the petitioner that pursuant to the letter of acceptance issued by the second respondent in respect of the above tenders, the second respondent placed various purchase orders on multiple dates for supply of equipments to various Hospitals/Government Institutions in the State and the said equipments were also delivered and installed in their destinations. After fulfilling the requirements as per the purchase order, the petitioner raised invoices corresponding to the supplied equipments and services. The second respondent had made partial payments towards invoices concerning all the three tenders and the petitioner was waiting for disbursal of the remaining outstanding amount. In these circumstances, on 20.06.2024, the second respondent had issued an e-mail to the petitioner stating that it had received certain bills and invoices certified by a King Institute Super Speciality Hospital (KCSSH), Guindy and requested petitioner to clarify whether the petitioner had collected the bill documents from the hospital and posted it to the second respondent. In response to the same, the petitioner had issued an e-mail to the second respondent on 21.06.2024 stating that the petitioner had not collected any bill documents from KCSSH and it was not posted by the petitioner.

5. It is further stated in the writ petitioner's affidavit that the second respondent issued a letter on 26.06.2024 stating that it received a set of documents pertaining to supply of various equipments. It was stated by the second respondent that the text signatures found in the above said documents appeared to be not from the concerned person of KCSSH and all the signatures found in the documents submitted were found to be forged. It was further mentioned in the communication that the printed invoices with numbers and dates mentioned in the documents could not have been prepared by a 3^rd party and hence it was concluded that prima facie, petitioner had forged the signature, stamp etc., and arranged to despatch the same to the second respondent, as if, it was sent by the Hospital. Since the action of the petitioner was held to be a fraudulent practice as per the terms of the tender conditions, the second respondent sought for a response from the petitioner as to why action could not be taken against the petitioner for the above mentioned fraudulent practice. The petitioner issued a communication reiterating that it had not collected any documents from KCSSH and posted the same to the second respondent. Thereafter, the second respondent sent another letter on 01.07.2024 stating that it received another set of documents pertaining to supply of equipments by the petitioner and those documents were also found to be forged. The second respondent sought for response from the petitioner by communication dated 01.07.2024. The petitioner reiterated its earlier stand by denying the act of forgery or despatch of document