THE HON’BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE SUJOY PAUL AND THE HON’BLE SMT. JUSTICE RENUKA YARA WRIT APPEAL No.432 of 2025 JUDGMENT: (Per the Hon’ble the Acting Chief Justice Sujoy Paul)

Sri A.Venkatesh, learned Senior Counsel representing Sri Sai Sanjay Suraneni, learned counsel for the appellant.

Sri M.Vigneshwar Reddy, learned Government Pleader for Transport, for respondents No.1 and 2.

2. With the consent, finally heard.

3. This intra Court appeal takes exception to the order of the learned Single Judge passed in W.P.No.26439 of 2024, dated

13.03.2025.

BRIEF FACTS OF THE CASE:

4. Learned Senior Counsel for the appellant submits that the appellant received a contract for supply of Smart Cards. However, some complaint was preferred against the appellant before the official respondents pursuant to which, it appears that certain chips were sent to National Informatics Centre (NIC) for testing.

The NIC submitted its report. Thereafter, the appellant was served with a show cause notice dated 24.06.2024. In turn, the appellant filed its detailed reply on 06.07.2024. Subsequently, by order dated 18.09.2024, the Transport Commissioner rejected the reply and decided to debar the supplier/appellant from participating in any tender relating to Transport Department. Feeling dissatisfied with the order dated 18.09.2024, the writ petition was filed. The learned Single Judge has dismissed the writ petition by the impugned order dated 13.03.2025.

CONTENTION OF THE APPELLANT:

5. The bone of contention of the learned Senior Counsel for the appellant is that the reply to the show cause notice has not been considered and no reasons were assigned for passing the order dated 18.09.2024 debarring the appellant from participating in any further tender. Such debarring amounts to “blacklisting”. It was not proposed in the show cause notice that if the reply is not acceptable, it may result into issuance of an order of debarring/blacklisting. This action, therefore, runs contrary to the binding judgment of the Supreme Court in Gorkha Security Services v. Government (NCT of Delhi), (2014) 9 SCC 105. Apart from this, the other infirmities pointed out in the reply to the show cause notice were not dealt with.

6. Learned Senior Counsel for the appellant submits that the learned Single Judge, in the impugned order, has reproduced the rival contentions raised by the parties at the bar and reproduced the citations relied upon by both sides. However, the reasoning and conclusions are mentioned only from paragraph 12 onwards.

7. Learned Senior Counsel for the appellant submits that the learned Single Judge relied on clause B.1(b) of the Request for Proposal (RFP) of February, 2023. However, the said RFP does not provide any power of blacklisting to the official respondents. The decision making process adopted by the official respondents was flawed and therefore, when the appellant has raised doubt about the chips in the reply to the show cause notice, the said point ought to have been dealt with.

CONTENTION OF THE OFFICIAL RESPONDENTS:

8. Learned Government Pleader appearing for the official respondents supported the impugned order passed by the learned

Single Judge and urged that in view of the report of NIC, which was accepted by the learned Single Judge, no fault can be found in the impugned order.

9. The learned counsel for the parties have confined their arguments to the extent indicated above and no other point is pressed.

10. We have heard the learned counsel for the parties at length and perused the record.

FINDINGS:

11. This is trite that in a matter of this nature, the scope of judicial review is basically related to the decision making process. If the order dated 18.09.2024 is examined on the anvil of the said principle, it will be clear like cloudless sky that in the said order, there is no iota of discussion about the reply submitted by the appellant to the show cause notice. The appellant’s reply to the show cause notice, dated 06.07.2024, runs into almost four pages.