The main legal point established in the judgment is that government procurement through the GeM portal is mandatory, and the conditions of the tender must align with government guidelines.

JUDGMENT :

Prashant Kumar, J.

1. Heard Shri C.B. Yadav, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Shri Nisheeth Yadav, learned counsel for the petitioner, Shri Ashish Mishra, learned counsel appearing for respondent nos. 2 and 3, Shri Anand Kumar Yadav, learned counsel for respondent no. 4 and learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Union of India.

2. The petitioner submits that they are doing business of supplying trained security guards. The respondent no. 2-LIC floated a tender for Supply of Security Personnels, and the petitioner being a successful bidder, an agreement was executed to supply security guards to respondent nos. 2 and 3 for a period of seven years, i.e. from 2007 to 2015. Thereafter, from 2015 to 2022, the work was allotted to some other company, this contract was about to come to an end on 30th June, 2022. Subsequently, the tender was extended by one year.

3. The respondent nos. 2 and 3 published a tender dated 06.05.2022 in various newspapers on 26.05.2022 and was also uploaded on the GeM Portal as it is mandatory by the State to put all the government tenders on the said portal. During the pendency of the tender proceedings, since respondent nos. 2 and 3 needed a security, so an agreement was executed between the petitioner and respondent nos. 2 and 3 on 31.08.2022 for providing security guards for one year. The petitioner is relying heavily on Clause 6 of the agreement which is being reproduced hereunder :-

"Period of Contract -Initial agreement/contract shall be for a period of one year effective from 01.09.2022 and shall be renewed after 01 years on same term and conditions on mutual consent of both the parties for another 01 year (maximum two such occasion on same terms and condition). In case of contract for security services not being renewed for any reason, whatsoever, before expiry of tenure i.e. 31.08.2023, the contract shall be deemed to have renewed on same terms and conditions for a period of 12 months

However, contract may be terminated by the Corporation at any time with one month notice, in case, services provided by the Service Provider are found to be unsatisfactory. However, if the Service Provider for whatsoever reasons decides to terminate the contract, he will have to provide a minimum notice period of three months. In the event of the earlier termination by either parties to the contract or expiry of the contract, the Service Provider shall be obliged to continue providing the services on the same terms and conditions as provided in the contract, till such time as Corporation is able to make any alternative arrangement or Corporation has agreed in writing to allow the Service Provider to discontinue earlier."

4. That, before the period of agreement would come to an end, the respondent nos. 2 and 3 published a fresh e-tender on 21.06.2023 inviting companies to provide security guards. It has been argued that in this tender, an additional condition was added wherein, it became mandatory, for the bidders to be empanelled with the DGR and only those empanelled bidders could have applied and because of this arbitrary condition so imposed in the tender, the petitioner was not able to participate in the tender.

5. Aggrieved against the tender conditions and the fresh tender, the petitioner has filed the instant writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India praying for the following reliefs :

“(i) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the bid document dated 21.06.2023 issued by the respondents.

(ii) issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of mandamus directing the respondent No. 3 to allow the petitioner to work and further grant benefit of Clause (6) of the agreement dated 31.08.2022.”

6. To buttress the writ, the counsel for the petitioner made the following submissions ;

Firstly, there was no advertisement in the newspapers and it was only adver