The main legal point established in the judgment is the illegality of the extension granted to respondent no. 5, leading to loss to the public exchequer and the need for a proper investigation by CBI.

JUDGMENT :

Rakesh Thapliyal, J.

1. By the instant writ petition, the petitioner is questioning the action of respondent authorities whereby respondent no. 5 was awarded a contract to run parking namely Pantdeep on government land in Haridwar measuring 94506.76 sq. m. pursuant to the tender floated on 23.02.2019 for three years and thereafter, under the garb of condition no. (1) of the tender notice, the Chief Engineer, Level-II, Irrigation Department, Haridwar, on the recommendation of the Superintendent Engineer, extended the period of parking in favour of respondent no. 5 initially, in the first phase for 400 days and thereafter, in the second phase for 229 days i.e. for total 629 days. The extension granted to respondent no. 5 is challenged by the petitioner on the ground that as per the condition of the tender notice, period of tender can extended, if parking area is declared as zero parking zone or containment zone during the Covid pandemic, but no such record is available with the respondents. In addition to this challenge, petitioner is further seeking a writ of mandamus directing the respondents to call for e-auction of the said Pantdeep parking.

2. The facts of the case are that initially, an auction notice was issued for Pantdeep parking for three years by auction notice dated 05.02.2019, pursuant to instructions issued by the Superintendent Engineer, Irrigation Department by office letter dated 01.02.2019, which was published in daily newspaper. However, by office memo dated 08.02.2019, the said auction notice was cancelled. It is contended by the petitioner that earlier, parking was allotted through tender on year to year basis for a period of one year. However, by the aforesaid e-auction notice dated 05.02.2019 the tender was invited for awarding the contract to run parking for three year.

3. It is also contended by the petitioner that by the auction notice dated 05.02.2019, the contractor was also required to undertake certain civil work for development of the parking area and the estimated cost of carrying development work was given as Rs. 5.5 crore and since by the said auction notice, it was proposed to carry out development work of the parking area, which included civil work, therefore, a condition was stipulated that the bidder should be registered as “A” Class or higher class Contractor with Irrigation Department. It is further contended by the petitioner that as per information sought under the Right to Information Act, certificate of registration under Class “A”, “B” “C” and “AA” is required only the purpose of civil construction work and for running a parking, there is no such requirement to put a condition that only bidders having registration of “AA” Class Contractor are eligible to participate.

4. After cancelling the earlier tender notice, a fresh tender notice was issued on 23.02.2019 for auction of Pantdeep parking in Haridwar and last date of submission of bid was 05.03.2019. Further a corrigendum was issued on 28.02.2019 whereby the mode of auction from “e-auction” was directed to be read as “auction” only. It is contended that while issuing the said corrigendum dated 28.02.2019, it appears that the bidders were allowed to submit their bids off line also. It is submission of the petitioner that earlier condition of carrying out the civil development work to the tune of Rs. 5.5 Crore was deleted. However, condition no. 5 (i), which provides that only the “AA” Class Contractor registered with the Irrigation Department, as an essential condition for participating in auction, was remain unchanged. It is submitted by the petitioner that there was no such need to put this condition that only “AA” Class Contractor shall participate in the tender process, since civil work for development of parking was deleted in the subsequent auction notice. It is further submitted by the petitioner that making this condition mandatory is nothing but to favour the respondent no. 5 and oust the other bidders. The conditions