SATYA PRAKASH MITTAL Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THIS petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, filed as a Public Interest Litigation (PIL), (i) impugns the Request for Qualification (RFQ) issued in August, 2012, the Request for Proposal (RFP) issued in September, 2013 and the Award of Concession granted in October, 2013 by the respondent no.2 Airports Authority of India (AAI) to the respondent no.5 Travel Food Services Chennai Pvt. Ltd. and respondent no.6 Travel Food Services Kolkata Pvt. Ltd. to develop, operate and maintain the Food and Beverages Outlets at Chennai and Kolkata Airports respectively; and, (ii) seeks a direction to the respondent no.4, Chairman, AAI to not implement or give effect to the said contracts in any manner whatsoever.

(2.) IT is inter alia the case of the petitioner, carrying on business in computer designing and printing work at Delhi, that the RFQ and the RFP were tailor made for the respondents no.5 and 6; that though for the sake of showing competition, the respondents no.8 and 9 M/s. Travel Food Services Pvt. Ltd. and M/s. Devyani International Pvt. Ltd. respectively also participated but the respondents no.5,6,8 and 9 have common Directors and shareholders; that the respondent no.3 Chief Vigilance Officer, AAI and the respondent no.7 Mr. J.N. Bhavani Prasad, the External Independent Monitor, AAI had in November, 2013 made a recommendation of termination of the contracts with the respondents no.5 and 6 for the reason of the same having been awarded contrary to the prescribed procedure, but no action was taken.

(3.) ON a reading of the petition we were intrigued as to how the petitioner, a resident of Delhi and in no way connected with the subject matter of the petition, got interested therein and collected such detailed information and documents as pleaded in and filed with the petition, with respect to the subject contracts. Though the petitioner pleaded to have become aware of the facts through media reports but neither any particulars of the media nor any copy of the reports from which the petitioner had gathered the details, were pleaded / filed. More so, when the petitioner, in the past had not filed any PIL. We were therefore suspicious and felt that the petition, rather than in public interest, was in the interest of either the jilted competitors of the respondents no.5 and 6 or the persons affected by the award of contracts aforesaid to the respondents no.5 and 6.