JUDGMENT :

1. Heard Sri J.N. Mathur, learned Senior Advocate, assisted by Sri Mudit Agarwal, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri V.P. Nag, learned Standing Counsel for respondent No. 1, and Sri Santosh Kumar Singh, learned Advocate, who has put in appearance and filed his power on behalf of respondent Nos. 2 to 5.

2. The petitioner has filed the present writ petition seeking a writ of certiorari quashing the impugned order dated 22.11.2021 passed by respondent No. 3 whereby the petitioner company has been debarred (blacklisted) from taking any work in future and a penalty of Rs. 36,750/- has also been imposed.

3. It is stated that the petitioner is a company incorporated in the year 2006 and is one of the leading consultants in providing the consultancy services in the field of architecture, interior, infrastructure, engineering and management. It has been working on various prestigious projects in India and abroad for Central Government, State Governments, Public Sector Undertakings and Private Organisations. The petitioner was selected in the bid and on 14.8.2018 an agreement was entered into between the petitioner and the State Urban Development Agency (SUDA) for the work of preparation of Detailed Project Reports (DPRs) and providing Project Management Consultancy (PMC) services for projects under Beneficiary Led Construction (BLC) in the Meerut Cluster under the Pradhanmantri Awas Yojna (Urban). The Project Director, District Urban Development Agency (DUDA) vide letter dated 27.10.2018 appointed the petitioner as the PMC for 5 blocks of district Hapur comprising 909 beneficiaries in place of earlier agency. According to the petitioner, finding the work satisfactory, SUDA from time to time issued various work orders awarding more and more work of preparing the DPR and PMC work to the petitioner for the BLC in district Hapur (under Meerut Cluster) totaling to work of 5808 beneficiaries under BLC. It is submitted that as per the procedure prescribed by SUDA, the inquiry team alongwith the petitioner conducted door to door survey and prepared a list of accepted beneficiaries, which was approved under the signatures of the Project Officer, DUDA, Executive Officer, CLTC, Engineer and representative of the petitioner. On the basis of the said list, it is submitted, the petitioner prepared the DPR of each of the dwelling unit and submitted the same for approval. All the 21 DPRs for district Hapur were accepted and approved by the DUDA and ultimately by SUDA. After the approval of the DPR, petitioner started the PMC work, during which it was found that large number of accepted beneficiaries had informed incorrect facts, therefore, the petitioner prepared list of total 1127 rejected beneficiaries, which was again approved by the inspection team. After the approval of rejected beneficiaries, the petitioner prepared the revised DPR, which was also approved by SUDA and DUDA. It is further stated that the list of rejected beneficiaries was submitted before the Project Officer, DUDA, who forwarded it to the Executive Officer, who invited objections on the same by giving wide publicity to the list of the rejected beneficiaries. Since no objections were received, the list of rejected beneficiaries prepared by the petitioner was approved by the respondents. However, according to the petitioner, all of a sudden it received the impugned order dated 22.11.2021 passed by respondent No. 3 debarring it from any further work in future and imposed the penalty.

4. Learned Senior Counsel appearing for the petitioner submits that no show-cause notice was ever issued to the petitioner nor any explanation was sought from the petitioner at any point of time nor was any allegation of deficiency in service ever levelled upon the petitioner in respect of the issue in question, on the basis of which the debarment has been done. Thus, the impugned order of blacklisting has been passed in violation of the principles of natural justice.

5. Learned counsel