IMPORTANT POINT
The court emphasized the need to prevent arbitrariness or favoritism in matters relating to award of contracts involving a public authority, and highlighted the principles of judicial review to ensure fairness and transparency in the tender process.

JUDGMENT

[1] Heard Shri M. Devananda, learned Advocate appearing for the petitioner while Shri Ng. Jotindra Luwang, learned Advocate appearing for the private respondent and Shri Niranjan Sanasam, learned Government Advocate appearing for the State respondents.

[2] The validity and correctness of the work order dated 19-07-2019 is under challenge in this writ petition and a prayer has been made by the petitioner to direct the respondents to issue the work order, in respect of the work under package No.MNO 2171, to him as per the Clause 27.1 (i) & (ii) of the Standard Bidding Documents.

[3.1] The petitioner is a contractor by profession who had undertaken many contract works in the past by executing them to the satisfaction of the authorities in the Department. The Central Government through Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India, has been providing funds to the State Governments including the State of Manipur since 2001 for construction of roads in rural areas towards development of roads and rural connectivity under the scheme called Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (hereinafter referred to as “the PMGSY”). Since its inception, the phases I-V of the scheme were executed by the Deputy Commissioners of the Districts and thereafter, they were executed under the Ministry of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (RD & PR), Government of Manipur after constituting the Engineering Department called the Manipur State Rural Roads Development Agency which has now been renamed as the Rural Engineering Department (RED).

[3.2] The Respondent No.2, the Chief Engineer, RED, Manipur issued an NIT dated 07-01-2019 inviting percentage rate bids for construction of 62 roads and 23 bridges under batch-I, 2018-19 including the maintenance thereof for five years from the eligible and approved contractors. The petitioner being eligible for it, submitted his bids and was declared as the lowest bidder. The petitioner being suspicious of the actions to be taken by the respondents, approached this Court by way of a writ petition being WP(C) No.595 of 2019 praying for a direction to issue work order in his favour, which was disposed on 07-08-2019 with the direction that the respondents and in particular, respondent No.2 should examine the responsiveness of the bids of the contractors keeping in mind the fact that the petitioner was the lowest bidder and after the responsiveness of the bids being examined and decided by the respondent No.2 with reasons being recorded thereof, the work order should be issued to the contractor. This exercise, if not already done, should be done within three weeks therefrom and after the decision being taken by the respondents, the contractors should be informed and that too, before the work order was issued by the respondent No.2. It may be noted that before the disposal of the writ petition, an interim order dated 30-07-2019 was passed by this Court directing the respondents not to issue any work order in respect of package No.MN0 2171 till 01-08-2019 which was extended till 07-08-2019. Meanwhile, an application under the Right to Information Act was filed seeking for information and in reply thereto, the respondents vide their letter dated 19-09-2019 furnished a copy of the work order dated 19-07-2019 which was awarded to the private respondent.

[3.3] According to the petitioner, the work order dated 19-07-2019 was a back dated order and if it was really issued, the same could have been produced before this Court, when WP(C) No.595 of 2019 was listed for motion on 30-07-2019 or on the dates when the interim order was extended from time to time. No information was furnished either by the respondents or by the Government Advocate that the work orders had been issued to the private respondent. A copy of the work order was furnished only when the RTI application was filed by the petitioner which goes to show that there was no work order issued at the time of disposal of the writ petition. Since the work order was a bac