1. Being aggrieved by the common judgment and order dated 17.04.2001 passed by the Division Bench of the High Court of Calcutta in Appeal Number 462 and 463 of 1992, allowing the appeals filed by the respondent against the judgment of a learned Single Judge, these civil appeals have been preferred where special leave was granted. Since both these appeals involve similar questions of law and facts and arise out of the same impugned order, we propose to dispose of both these appeals by this common judgment and order.

3. Subsequently the appellant Board placed another purchase order vide No. RSEB / SE / Proc.I / TN-1312 / 202 dated 02.12.1987 for supply of 150 kiloliter of transformer oil for an amount of Rs. 19,50,000/-. Similar to the previous purchase order, in the present purchase order also the respondent was required to furnish the bank guarantee equivalent to 2 per cent of the contract value towards security deposit and equiv