Full Judgment
WP No.1104 of 2013 IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction ORIGINAL SIDE CONCORD ENGINEERING ,ENGINEERING & CONSTRUCTORS -Versus THE STATE OF WEST BENGAL & ORS.Appearance: Mr.B.B.Sarkar, Adv.Ms.Iti Dutta, Adv.Mr.Arup Kumar Chatterjee, Adv...for the petitioner.
Mr.Kishore Dutta, Adv.Mr.Billadal Bhattacharyya, Adv...for the State-respondent.
Mr.Laxmi Gupta, Adv.Mr.Rishad Medora, Adv.Mr.Santosh Kumar Ray, Adv...for the added respondent.
BEFORE: The Hon'ble JUSTICE SANJIB BANERJEE Date : November 21, 2013.
The Court : The petitioner challenges the rejection by the respondent authorities of the petitioner’s technical bid on the ground that the petitioner did not meet the eligibility criteria set in the tender notice dated September 6, 2013 issued by the Directorate of Public Health Engineering.
One of the essential eligibility criteria as indicated in clause 6 of the tender document was that the tenderer had to have experience in execution of similar type of work of value not less than Rs.120 lakh in a single contract within the last five yeaRs.It appears from a letter dated September 30, 2013 issued by the petitioner to the Principal Secretary of PHE that the petitioner did not meet such criterion as referred to above and covered by clause 6(b) of the tender documents.
The same is evident from the following paragraphs of the petitioner’s letter of September 30, 2013: “In spite of the aforesaid successful effort of our organization, We will not be able to participate in the bid because single contract value as noted above is marginally less than 120 lakh as specified in the NIT.
But taken together for the plant the value of work after completion comes to Rs.2,39,64,315.00 (Rs Two Crore Thirty Nine Lakh Sixty Four Thousand Three Hundred Fifteen only) Which is well above the Desired minimum Limit of Rs.120 lakh specified in the NIT.
However in NIT there is a scope as tender inviting authority reserve the right to relax the eligibility criteria for fair and competitive tender.” The petitioner’s technical bid was rejected by the PHE on the ground that the petitioner had submitted “disjointed, deficient sets of credentials related to R.O.Bottling plant which lacks in totality.” Notwithstanding the reason for rejection not appearing to be intelligible at fiRs.reading, since it is evident that the petitioner admitted that the petitioner was not eligible to participate in the process and the petitioner sought relaxation of the eligibility criteria, it cannot be said that the petitioner has been unfairly dealt with in the petitioner having been found to be ineligible to participate in the process.
The petitioner seeks to question the credentials of the other tenderers and says that the other bidders do not have any experience in respect of the work and their bids should also be rejected.
Since it is evident that the petitioner was not entitled to participate in the process, the petitioner cannot be heard to question the credentials of the others who have participated or sought to participate in the process, whether or not the grounds urged by the petitioner may be meritorious.
W.P.No.1104 of 2013 fails for the reasons recorded above.
There will be no order as to costs.
Certified website copies of this order, if applied for, be urgently supplied to the parties subject to compliance with all requisite formalities.
(SANJIB BANERJEE, J.) Bp.
A.R.(C.R.)