Adherence to specified eligibility criteria and LWE affected districts is crucial for contract award decisions.

JUDGMENT

Dr. S. Muralidhar, CJ. - Claiming to be the lowest bidder for the tender for the work 'Construction of Road under Pradhan Mantri Gramya Sadak Yojana vide Package No.OR-24-203-A Hatibandha to Dhungiamunda via Charpali', the Petitioner, who is a registered A Class contractor has filed this writ petition for a mandamus to be issued to the Opposite Parties comprising the State of Odisha (Opposite Party No.1), the Engineer-in-Chief, Rural Works (Opposite Party No.2), the Chief Engineer (PMGSY) (Opposite Party No.3), the Superintending Engineer, Rural Works Circle, Bhawanipatana (Opposite Party No.4) and Executive Engineer, Rural Works Division, Khariar, Nuapada (Opposite Party No.5) to execute the agreement in his favour for the said contract. Further prayer of the Petitioner is for quashing the proceeding dated 12th March, 2019, communicated to the tender authority on 15 th March, 2019, disqualifying his bid.

2. Among the tender conditions, Clause 4.4 reads as under:

'Clause - 4.4 (A). To qualify for award of the contract, each bidder should have in the last five years:-

a) Achieved in any one year, a minimum financial turnover as certified by Chartered Accountant, and at least 50% of which is from Civil Engineering Construction works) equivalent to amount given below.

(i) 60% of amount put to bid, in case the amount put to bid is Rs.200 lakhs and less.

(ii) 75% of amount put to bid, in case the amount put to bid is more than Rs.200 lakhs.

The amount put to bid above would not include maintenance cost for 5 years and the turnover will be indexed at the rate of 8% per year.

If the bidder has executed road works under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in originally stipulated completion period, the financial turnover achieved on account of execution of road works under PMGSY shall be counted as 120% for the purpose of this subclause.

In Naxal/Left Wing Extremist Affected Districts, the figures of 60% and 75% in (i) and (ii) above would be replaced by 50%.

(b) Satisfactorily completed, as prime contractor or sub-contractor, at least one similar road work/long span bridge work equal in value to one third (one fourth in case of Naxal/LWE affected Gajapati, Malkangiri, Rayagada, Deogarh and Sambalpur districts) of the estimated cost of work (excluding maintenance cost for five years) for which the bid is invited, or such higher amount as may be specified in the Appendix to ITB. The value of road work/bridge work completed by the bidder under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana in originally stipulated period of completion shall be counted as 120% for the purpose of this sub clause.'

The other relevant clause is Clause 27, which reads thus:

'Clause 27 : - Award Criteria

27.1 Subject to clause 30 of ITB, the Employer will award the contact to the Bidder whose Bid has been determined.

(i) to be substantially responsive to the bidding documents and who has offered the lowest evaluated Bid price, provided that such bidder has been determined to be (a) eligible in accordance with the provisions of clause 4 of ITB; and

(ii) to be within the available bid capacity adjusted to account for his bid price which is evaluated the lowest in any of the packages opened earlier than the one under consideration.'

3. It appears that four bidders including the present Petitioner had participated pursuant to the tender call notice. According to the Petitioner, the technical bids of all four of them were found to be in order. It is further stated that on 4th March, 2019, the price bid was opened and the Petitioner was found to have quoted the lowest amount and was declared L-1. The Petitioner states that he learnt of a complaint against him by unknown persons that the tender authority had counted one fourth of the value of the similar nature of past work of the Petitioner instead of executed one third of similar nature of work. The Petitioner states that he met the Opposite Party Nos.2 and 3 and submitted a representation dated 28th February, 2019 stating that the work