22.4. 2025 item No.20 n.b.

ct. no. 24 WPA 8707 of 2025 Prasanta Soren Vs.

Hisdustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. & Ors.

Mr. Saptansu Basu, Sr. Adv., Mr. Ramesh Dhara, ….. for the petitioner.

Mr. Biswanath Chatterjee, Mr. Sobhan Kumar Pathak, …… for the respondent nos. 1 to 4.

Affidavit of service filed by the petitioner is taken on record.

Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd. floated a tender for road transport of bulk petroleum products like MS/HSD/Branded Fuels for Ex-Durgapur IRD for a period five years with effect from1.1.2025 to 31.12.2029. The petitioner participated in tender procedure and being succesful, provisional letter of acceptance(LOA) was issued in favour of petitioner. Petitioner offers 9 Truck Tankers(TT), amongst them seven trucks are in running condition but the petitioner intends to use two new ttS. According to the provision of letter of acceptance, the petitioner has to produce the seven trankers(TTs) and to produce two Booking Slips for two new trucks. For compliance of the said provisional letter of acceptance, the petitioner has placed seven tank trucks and Booking Slip of two new TTs trucks. It was provided in the provisional letter of acceptance that in case of booking slip of new TTs that the documents PARTAINS to the said tank trucks namely, R.C. Book Calibration Certificate, Explosive License & Fitness Certificate has to be produced within 90 days from the date of LOA.

Mr. Saptansu Basu, learned senior counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner submits that according to the terms of the LOA, petitioner has placed all 9 TTs including two new trucks for verification but at the time of inspection he could not produce the Smart Card and other documents relating to the two new Tank Trucks. It is further contention of the petitioner that the date of provisional letter of acceptance was December 18, 2024 but he received the said provisional letter acceptance only on January 9, 2025. It is specific pleadings affidavit of the petitioner that on the 9^th day January 2025, the petitioner received e-mail of HPCL wherein he was requested to check e-mail dated January 4, 20252. After checking the e-mail, petitioner could not find any e-mail in his account on January 4, 2025. Accordingly, he rushed to the office of the HPCL on January 9, 2025. On the same day he received the copy of provisional letter of acceptances.

It is further submission of Mr. Basu that on April

2, 2025 the new TTs were placed along with all documents except the Smart Card. However, facts shows that the concerned authority after inspection found that the required documents of two new TTs were not placed according to the terms of agreements thus, they have cancelled the entire LOA issued in favour of the petitioner and terminated the contract by an order dated April 10, 2025. Hence this writ petition.

Mr. Basu, learned senior counsel submits that the act and action of the concerned authority is illegal and perverse though, they have produced the documents within the stipulated period of 90 days, which would be reckoned from the date of January 9, 2025, but the order itself stated the last date stipulated 90 days is ended on April 4, 2025. The observation of the concerned authority regarding the end date for submission of the documents of the new TTs is erroneous. He further submits that the issue involved in the instant writ petition arose before this Court in a writ petition being WPA 23542 of 2024, wherein this Court has observed that for irregular reporting of some TTs, the entire agreement of all TTs between the petitioner and the Oil Company cannot be terminated. The observation of this Court has been upheld by the Hon’ble Division Bench in MAT 1905 of 2024. He placed the relevant paragraph no.15 of the observation of the Hon’ble Division Bench which reads as follows:

“15. Conjoint reading of the aforesaid Clauses show in the event of irregular reporting of TTs would attract monetary penalty including blacklisting of the TTs concerned. None of