ORDER

1. Since the pleadings are complete, therefore, with the consent of learned counsel for the parties, the matter is heard finally.

This petition is under Article 226 of the Constitution of India questioning the legality, validity and propriety of the orders dated 15.2.2017 (Annexure-P/14), 20.2.2017 (Annexure-P/15) and 30.11.2017 (Annexure-P/20).

2. As per the petitioner, the respondents illegally and in an arbitrary manner passed the impugned orders contrary to the terms and conditions of tender document and breached the settled principle of law as before passing the orders which carries civil consequences has not followed the principle of audi alteram partem. As per the petitioner, the respondents before proceeding against the petitioner did not care to issue any show cause notice and passed the order of blacklisting of the petitioner and consequentially considering it to be blacklisted invoked the performance bank guarantee that too for a different product whereas the dispute in regard to a single product.

3. The appeal preferred against the said order was rejected without going into the merits of the case and without considering the grounds raised by the petitioner in its appeal. Therefore, this petition has been filed seeking quashing of orders impugned.

4. After giving notice to the respondents by this Court, the respondents have filed their response stating therein that they have issued a notice to the petitioner before initiating action against it and that notice according to the respondents is Annexure-R/4 dated 13.12.2016. As per the respondents, there is nothing illegal committed by them but they have taken action which is well within the terms and conditions of tender document. According to them, the supply could not be completed within the stipulated period and, therefore, action has been taken as per Clause-13.3(a) of tender document. It is also submitted by the respondents that the appellate authority has discharged its obligation while deciding the appeal and also deciding the objection raised by the petitioner and that action has been taken against the petitioner after giving proper opportunity of hearing and as such, supported their action saying that the same was justified and according to them, the petition is without any substance and also filed after lapse of time and as such, it suffers from delay and laches and deserves to be dismissed.

5. Before deciding the issue involved in the case, it is necessary to take note of relevant facts of the case, which in brief are;

(5.1) That the petitioner’s company is a private limited company engaged in manufacturing of quality drugs and pharmaceuticals products and those are supplied to all government agencies across the country. As per the petitioner, it has an outstanding record of supplying the drugs to all the government agencies and no complaint till now from any of the agencies ever reported. The petitioner is a SSI Unit and duly registered under the MSME Act, 2006.

(5.2) The respondents inviting applications for supply of drugs issued an NIT on 28.8.2015 (Annexure-P/1) with the terms and conditions. In response to which, the petitioner’s company submitted tender application which has been accepted by the respondents. The petitioner since stood L-1 was asked to submit bank guarantee and on 15.12.2016 a bank guarantee for an amount of Rs.24,29,590/- has been submitted which was for Vitamin-A Syrup and a bank guarantee for an amount of Rs.1,29,33,809/- was also submitted on different dates for IFA Syrup. The respective documents are available on record as Annexure-P/2. According to the petitioner, there were two distinct bank guarantees for two different products but so far as the Vitamin-A Syrup is concerned, the bank guarantee of Rs.24,29,590/- was given. According to the petitioner, Vitamin-A Syrup has the main raw material in form of Vitamin-A Solution which is in fact manufactured by two major entities across the world and these two entities only supp