The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of adhering to essential tender conditions and the inability to waive such conditions.

Deepak Gupta, J.

This is the fourth round of litigation between the parties with regard to the same dispute.

[2] An NIT was floated on 21.08.2013 by the Deputy Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) & Director, Clouded Leopard National Park for supply of animal food to Sepahijala Zoo for the years 2013-14 and 2014-15. The petitioner, Md. Selim Miah and respondent No.5, Md. Bahadur Alam had submitted their tenders in this regard. The tender submitted by respondent No.5, Md. Bahadur Alam was informal and did not comply with the tender condition. The Forest Department recommended that the tender of the petitioner should be accepted. It was also noted by the Forest Department that the working of respondent No. 5 was not satisfactory. The matter was taken up by the Supply Advisory Board(SAB) which is the final authority in the State of Tripura to award the contract. The said authority directed that the tender be awarded to respondent No.5 ignoring the recommendation of the Forest Department.

[3] Thereafter the petitioner filed W.P(C) No.85 of 2014 before this Court and this writ petition was disposed of on 27th June, 2014 and this Court held as follows:

“[6] We are also not at all satisfied with the manner in which the decision of the Committee was virtually overturned. The Principal Secretary, Forest in his note dated 04.01.2014 stated that in view of the clarification given in Note No. 192 to 194 the tender be awarded to Md. Bahadur Alam. In case Md. Bahadur Alam had asked the competent authority from Sepahijala Zoological Park to give him the experience certificate, in that certificate the competent authority may or may not have mentioned that the services rendered by Md. Bahadur Alam at the earliest stage were not proper and his behaviour was also not proper. An experience certificate is meant not only to see whether supplies have been made or not but also to see whether the supplier has the capacity to make the supplies and whether on previous occasions he has worked to the satisfaction of the concerned authority. If we make reference to the note which we have quoted hereinabove it is apparent that the Director of the Sepahijala Zoological Park had doubted the integrity of Md. Bahadur Alam. The opinion of the Director could not be brushed aside.

We had thereafter remitted the matter to SAB which was directed to re-decide the matter.

[4] The SAB instead of deciding the matter again decided to float fresh tenders and though that was not in consonance with the direction of the Court, this Court had permitted the department to do so. Thereafter, an application was filed for extension of time by the State of Tripura on behalf of the SAB and a writ petition being W. P(C) No.366 of 2014 was filed by the petitioner challenging the floating of tender. We had dismissed the writ petition but had noticed as follows:

“[5] We had accepted the request of the State and extended the time upto 30th September, 2014. The time was extended at the request of the State. The State had requested time upto 30th September, 2014 and we had been assured that the fresh tender process would be completed by this date. We are totally unhappy with the manner in which the orders of this Court are being flouted. The officials of the State cannot have expected that any request made by them has to be accepted. The senior most officials of the State had made a solemn promise to this Court to ensure that a fresh tender process is completed by 30th September, 2014.”

[5] Thereafter fresh tenders were invited for supply of the animal food to the Zoo. One of the main tender conditions was as follows:

“1. Earnest money for an amount of Rs. 30,000/- (Rupees thirty thousand) only for Group- ‘A’, Rs. 40,000/- (Rupees forty thousand) only for Group- ‘B’, Rs. 10,000/- (Rupees ten thousand) only for Group – ‘C’ & Rs. 70,000/- (Rupees seventy thousand) only for Gr