Contractors cannot be disqualified based on retrospective changes to eligibility criteria, and refusals of tenders must be justified and fair.

1. The petitioner before us is a partnership firm, which carries on business as Consultants and Contractors in respect of dams, irrigation projects and other constructional activity. The petitioners were registered with the Public Works Department of the State of Maharashtra as approved contractors in Class B, vide Registration Certificate issued to them dated 19th June 1981. It is an admitted position that the registration was valid until 12th April 1984. As per the regulations then in force the petitioners were given eligibility to offer bids or tenders up to a limit of Rs. 60 1acs in respect of constructional work and / or irrigation projects in the State of Maharashtra.

2. It is the case of the petitioners that the respondents published an advertisement in the Indian Express of Bombay in one of their issues of August 1982 inviting tenders for construction of the lining work in km 73 to 80 of Kukadi Left Bank Canal, Sirur, District Pune on the terms and conditions prescribed and mentioned therein. It has also come on record that this advertisement appeared in the news - paper 'Tarun Bharat' dated 1st September 1982. Subsequent to this a corrigendum dated 25th September 1982 came to be published in which the Class of contractors eligible to offer tenders for the work was amended from Class A to Class B +. It is the case of the petitioners that by virtue of their registration in Class B + they were, eligible to offer tender for the construction work in question. It further appears that the State of Maharashtra by a Resolution dated 6th September 1982 revised Rules for Registration of Contractors and provided for a fresh system of categorisation in the manner as set out in the resolution. The material part of the resolution, which deals with categories B and B +, specifies that contractors falling in these categories were reclassified as belonging to Class IV prescribing a limit of Rs. 50 lacs. It appears that the petitioner No. 2 by his letter dated 16th September 1982 applied for certain modifications in respect of Registration Certificate that had earlier been issued to him and it is his case that this modification became necessary because he desired that the Registration Certificate which stood in his individual name should be modified to one in the partnership name. By a letter dated 16th October 1982 addressed to the petitioners the Executive Engineer, Pune Division, accepted the application dated 16th September 1982 from the petitioner No. 2 and informed him that the Registration Certificate is changed from the name of 'B. G. Ahuja' to 'M/s. B. G. Ahuja'. The petitioners were further informed that they are now placed in Class IV with effect from 6th September 1982 to 12th April 1984 and that they are now treated as capable of offering their tender for work of the State of Maharashtra up to the limit of Rs. 50 lacs.

3. The record indicates that the petitioners submitted their tender on 1st November 1982 and that the tenders were opened and scrutinised on 2nd November 1982. It is the case of the petitioners as set out in paragraphs 10 and 11 of the petition that the Superintending Engineer, Kukari Project Circle, Pune opened all the tenders on or about 1st November 1982 and informed the petitioners orally and declared in the presence of all that the tender of the petitioners was the lowest amongst all the tenders received so far and that the entire work as also the sub-works would be awarded to them. The petitioners have further contended in paragraph 11 of the petition that petitioner No. 2 personally went to the Office of respondent No. 2 on or about 24th January 1983 but co