High Court of Punjab and HaryanaCWP/21994/2024dismissed

Roshan Lal v. Food Corporation Of India And Another

2024-09-17Mr. Justice Arun Palli,Mr. Justice Vikram Aggarwal13 pages

IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA

AT CHANDIGARH (i) CWP-21994-2024 M/s Roshan Lal & Co.

...... Petitioner

Versus

Food Corporation of India and another ...... Respondents (ii) CWP-22011-2024 Mahinder Pal and another ...... Petitioners

Versus

Food Corporation of India and another ...... Respondents Reserved on : 03.09.2024 Pronounced on : 17.09.2024 CORAM : HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE ARUN PALLI HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIKRAM AGGARWAL *** Present : Mr. H.P.S.Binder, Advocate for the petitioner in CWP No.21994 of 2024.

Mr. D.S.Patwalia, Senior Advocate with Mr. Gauravjit Singh Patwalia, Advocate for the petitioners in CWP-22011 of 2024.

Mr. Sunish Bindlish, Advocate for the respondent(s).

*** VIKRAM AGGARWAL , J 1.

The issue raised in both the afore-titled writ petitions being identical, they are being disposed of by way of a common judgment. The

facts are being extracted from CWP No.21994-2024. 2.

The petitioner has impugned the order dated 24.08.2024 (Annexure P-15), passed by respondent No.1-Food Corporation of India (hereinafter referred to as 'the respondent-Corporation') vide which the objections raised by the petitioner to respondent No.2 having been declared technically responsive have been rejected.

A Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) (Annexure P-1) was issued on 06.05.2024 by the respondent-Corporation for appointment of a Handling and Transport Contractor (HTC) at Sultanpur Lodhi Centre, District Kapurthala (Punjab). There were eight applicants including the petitioner and respondent No.2 in CWP No.21994-2024 and both petitioners in CWP No.22011 of 2024.

It is the case of the petitioner that respondent No.2 had submitted various documents alongwith his bid in the shape of income tax returns, Udyam Registration Certificate, GST Registration Certificate, Aadhar Card, EPF Registration Certificate, Experience Certificate etc. and in many of the aforesaid documents, different addresses were mentioned indicating that the documents were false, having fraudulent business addresses. It is the case of the petitioner that in the letter dated 09.04.2015 (Annexure P-2) vide which provident fund code number was stated to have been issued to respondent No.2, the address of the Regional Office of the establishment was mentioned as House No.530/2, Model Town, Ward No.1, Ludhiana. In the GST Registration Certificate (Annexure P-3), the address mentioned was Rahon Road, Model Town, Samrala Road, Khanna, District Ludhiana. Similarly, in

the Udyam Registration Certificate (Annexure P-4), the address given was Booth No.28, Grain Market, Khanna, District Ludhiana and Form No.5-A (Annexure P-5) generated through the Web portal Employees' Organization, mentioned the address of the establishment of respondent No.2 as House No.530/2, Model Town, Ward No.1, Khanna, District Ludhiana. The Aadhar Card (Annexure P-6) also mentioned this very address whereas the Forwarding Letter dated 06.05.2024 (Annexure P-7) with the Appendix-I at the time of participation in the e-tender process mentioned the address as booth No.28, Grain Market, Khanna, District Ludhiana which was the address mentioned in Appendix-II (Annexure P-8) also. 5.

When the aforesaid fact came to the knowledge of the other bidders, petitioner No.2 Vijay Kumar in CWP No.22011 of 2024 submitted a complaint dated 27.06.2024 (Annexure P-9) to the respondent-Corporation bringing to its notice the said discrepancies in the documents submitted by respondent No.2.

Thereafter, technical evaluation of the bids was carried out in which two bidders were held to be non-responsive whereas the remaining six bidders including the petitioners and respondent No.2 in both the petitions were held to be technically responsive and were, therefore, held to be qualified for evaluation of their financial bids. 7.

Upon evaluation of the financial bids, respondent No.2 was declared L-1, petitioner No.1 in CWP No.22011 of 2024 namely Mohinder Pal was declared L-2, petitioner M/s Roshan Lal and Company in CWP No.21994-2024 was declared L-3 and petitioner No.2 Vijay Kumar in CWP

No.22011 of 2024 was declared L-4 whereas the remaining bidders were declared as L-5 and L-6 respectively. The result of the technical evaluation and the financial evaluation of the bids have been placed on record as Annexures P-10 and P-11 respectively.

Instead of acting on the complaint submitted by Vijay Kumar, the respondent-Corporation permitted respondent No.2 to submit an undertaking (Annexure P-12) that he was having two addresses i.e. House No.530, Model Town, Khanna, District Ludhiana which was his residential address and the same was used for participating in the tender process whereas his office address was Booth No.28, Grain Market, Khanna. 9.

Aggrieved by this action, the petitioner preferred CWP No.16680 of 2024 which was disposed of by this Court vide order dated 19.07.2024 (Annexure P-13) with a direction to the respondent-Corporation to decide the representation submitted by Vijay Kumar by passing a speaking order after affording an opportunity to all stake-holders. 10.

Pursuant to the order dated 19.07.2024, written submissions dated 29.07.2024 (Annexure P-14) were submitted by the petitioner. However, the respondent-Corporation passed an order dated 24.08.2024 (Annexure P-15) holding the bid of respondent No.2 as valid and responsive, leading to the filing of the instant writ petition.

11.

Learned counsel for the petitioners and Mr. Sunish Bindlish, Advocate, learned counsel representing the respondent-Corporation, who had caused appearance on advance copy having been served, were heard. 12.

It was strenuously urged by Sh. D.S.Patwalia, learned Senior

Counsel representing the petitioners in CWP No.22011 of 2024 and Sh. H.P.S.Bhinder, learned counsel representing the petitioner in CWP No.21994 of 2024 that the action of the respondent-Corporation in ignoring the glaring discrepancies in the documents submitted by respondent No.2 clearly indicates that the respondent-Corporation was bent upon awarding the contract to respondent No.2 and ignored the discrepancies in an illegal and arbitrary manner. Reference was made to the documents (Annexures P-2 to P-8) submitted by respondent No.2, the result of the technical evaluation of bids (Annexure P-10), the order dated 19.07.2024 (Annexure P-13) passed by this Court and the impugned order dated 24.08.

2024 (Annexure P-15) and it was submitted that the action of the respondent-Corporation is not sustainable and, therefore, deserves to be quashed. It was also submitted that under similar circumstances, the respondent-Corporation had disqualified various bidders including the petitioner in CWP No.22011-2024 on account of documents submitted with the bids having minor discrepancies such as different dates of birth etc. It was submitted that the respondent-Corporation was expected to adopt the same yardstick for all bidders and should not adopt a pick and choose policy to the detriment of other bidders. 13.

Per contra, it was submitted by learned counsel representing the respondent-Corporation that the documents annexed by respondent No.2 with the bids were not ingenuine nor had they been cancelled by any authority and under the circumstances, a view had been taken by the respondentCorporation vide which the documents were accepted and the discrepancies were not found to be of such a nature which would entail rejection of the

technical bid of respondent No.2. It was submitted that as regards the other cases pointed out by learned Senior Counsel, there were different dates of birth in different documents which is a serious discrepancy and under the circumstances, those bids were rejected. It was submitted that in any case, it cannot be said that because bids in those cases had not been held to be technically responsive, the same principle would have to be applied in the present cases because each case has to be tested on its own facts and documents. No general principle can be laid down to be made uniformly applicable to all cases.

14.

We have considered the submissions made by learned counsel for the parties and have also perused the paper book. 15.

The Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) is on record as Annexure P-1. These were e-tenders, invited under the two bid system from financially sound parties having business competence for appointment of Regular Handling and Transport Contractor (HTC) for a period of two years for the Sultanpur Lodhi Centre, District Kapurthala. The estimated contract value was Rs.8,75,76,000/- and the HTC was to be appointed for two years. Admittedly, there were eight bidders. The whole dispute is as regards the documents submitted by respondent No.2 with his bids which have been placed on record as Annexures P-2 to P-8. A perusal of the said documents would show that essentially, the petitioner has given three addresses in these documents, the first one being House No.530/2, Model Town, Wards No.1, Khanna, District Ludhiana, the second being Rahon Road, Model Town, Samrala Road, Khanna, District Ludhiana and the third one being Booth

No.28, Grain Market, Khanna, District Ludhiana. Annexure P-2 is the document issued by the Employees' Provident Fund indicating the Provident fund code number to respondent No.2 which mentions the address of the firm of respondent No.2 as House No.530/2, Model Town, Ward No.1, Khanna, Ludhiana. Same is the address given on Form 5-A issued by the Employees' Provident Fund Registration (Annexure P-5) and the Aadhar Card (Annexure P-6). On the GST Registration Certificate, the address mentioned is Rahon Road, Model Town, Samrala Road, Khanna, District Ludhiana and the registration was from 2019 onwards. In the Udyam Registration Certificate (Annexure P-4) and the Forwarding letter (Annexure P-7) issued by respondent No.2 alongwith the appendix-I and appendix-II, the address was mentioned as Booth No.

28, Grain Market, Khanna, District Ludhiana. When the issue was raked up by the bidders, as per the petitioner, no action was taken leading to the filing of CWP No.16680 of 2024 which was disposed of by this Court vide order dated 19.07.2024 calling upon the respondents to hear the stake holders and pass a speaking order. The parties were duly heard and a speaking order was passed on 24.08.2024 in which the objections raised by the petitioners were duly noted. As regards alleged violation of Clause 5 (a) and Clause 13 of the MTF, after examining all aspects, the respondent-Corporation came to the conclusion that there were minor variations in individual documents and the bidder could have more than one address which could not be taken as a major discrepancy.

initiate work only after that. It was also observed that respondent No.2 was not a new bidder and was already working with the respondent-Corporation. The contention as regards rejection of other bids on account of discrepancies was also noticed and was also held that rejection of separate bidders in separate tenders on different grounds could not be compared. It was, therefore, held that bids were not to be rejected on trivial and frivolous grounds;

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/ 16.

A perusal of the aforesaid order does not reflect any illegality or arbitrariness and respondent No.2 was not to be adjudged technically nonresponsive on the mere objections raised by the petitioner. We have not found any semblance of malafides in the decision making process of the respondents and are, therefore, not inclined to interfere. While arriving at this conclusion, we are reminded of the principles enunciated in the cases of Jagdish Mandal versus State of Orissa and others 2007 (14) SCC 517, 9 !- -

! < + )/ 8-/ 8-/ " # 9 State of Punjab and others versus Mehardin 2022 (5) SCC 648, TATA Cellular versus Union of India (1994) 6 SCC 651, Rajeev Suri Versus Delhi Development Authority 2022 (11) SCC 1, Balaji Ventures Pvt. Ltd. Versus Maharashtra State Power Generation Company Ltd. & Anr. 2022 LiveLaw (SC) 295 and Netai Bag and others versus State of W.B. and others (2000) 8 Supreme Court Cases 262.

In view of the aforementioned facts and circumstance, we do not find any merit in both the writ petitions and the same are hereby dismissed. (ARUN PALLI) (VIKRAM AGGARWAL) JUDGE JUDGE Reserved on : 03.09.2024 Pronounced on : 17.09.2024 mamta Whether speaking/reasoned Yes/No Whether Reportable Yes/No