The main legal point established in the judgment is that the rejection of a bid must be based on valid and sustainable reasons, and discriminatory treatment of bidders is not permissible.

JUDGMENT

1. This matter is taken up by video conferencing mode.

2. Heard Mr. Gautam Mishra, learned Senior Counsel for the Petitioner and Mr. M.S. Sahoo, learned Additional Government Advocate for the State-Opposite Parties.

3. This writ petition has been filed by Santoshi Infotech Computer Centre, a sole proprietary concern represented by its sole Proprietor Smt. Bharati Choudhury, questioning the rejection of the technical bid of the Petitioner by the Opposite Party Nos.1 to 3 for providing Data Entry Operators for MGNREGS, MGNREGS Assistant, Assistant Computer Programmer and Data Entry Operator for OLM. The Petitioner challenges the award of the said tender to the Opposite Party No.4 despite the Petitioner being the lowest tenderer.

4. The background facts are that on 26th June, 2020, the Project Director, District Rural Development Agency, Nabarangpur (DRDA) issued an advertisement inviting tenders for the above purpose. The Petitioner states that within the due date and time, i.e., 5 pm on 30th July 2020, the Petitioner submitted all the requisite documents, which included the Registration Certificate (RC) were issued under the Odisha Shops & Commercial Establishment Act, 1956 (OSCE Act) issued by the District Labour Commissioner, Nabarangpur, a GST Registration Certificate, document relating to the Provident Fund issued by the Sub-Regional Office, Berhampur, Certificate issued by the Employees' State Insurance Corporation, Regional Office, Bhubaneswar. Also included among these documents was the license issued by the Licensing Officer and District Labour Officer, Nabarangpur dated 21st November, 2009 containing endorsements of renewal up to 21st November, 2020.

5. It appears that there were 18 bidders, whose technical bids were opened on 14th July, 2020. 9 out of the 18 bidders qualified in the technical bid. The Petitioner's technical bid was not accepted. According to the Petitioner, the Opposite Parties 1 to 3 verbally communicated to the Petitioner that the technical bid had been rejected because the Petitioner was not registered with the IGR, Cuttack and no documents with regard thereto was submitted along with the tender documents.

8. On 15th July 2020, the Petitioner wrote to the Project Director, DRDA (Opposite Party No.3) to disclose the reasons for nonacceptance of its technical bid. On 16th July 2020, the Petitioner filed an application under the Right to Information Act (RTI Act) seeking the reasons for rejection of the technical bid. But no reply was forthcoming. Meanwhile the Petitioner learnt that the contract was to be awarded to Opposite Party No.4. Hence, the present writ petition was filed.

9. When the petition was listed on 24th September 2020, learned Additional Government Advocate sought time to file a reply.

Thereafter on 5th October 2020, the Court, while directing the writ petition to be listed along with W.P.(C) No.17709/2020 (M/s. Famous Security Service v. State of Odisha) required the copy of the counter affidavit filed by the Opposite Parties 1 to 3 in the present petition to be served on the Petitioner. The Court granted time to the Opposite Party No.4 to file its counter affidavit.

10. At this stage, it must be noted that, W.P.(C) No.17709/2020 had been filed in the context of the Project Director, DRDA, Nabarangpur not conducting a transparent lottery among the bidders, who had quoted more than Rs.7/- in the tender process. The Petitioner in the said petition questioned the manner in which Opposite Party No.3 had desired to award the tender in favour of the persons, who had quoted abnormally low service charges contrary to the directives of the Finance Department issued on 22nd May 2018.

11. Initially in W.P.(C) No.17709/2020, an interim order was passed by this Court on 6th August, 2020 directing that the Opposite Parties will not finalise the tender till the next date. It may be noted here that ultimately W.P.(C) No.17709/2020 was dismissed as withdrawn on 24th September, 2020 by this Court.

12. R