ARPHI ELECTRONICS PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) By the present writ petition the petitioners are challenging the illegal and arbitrary action on the part of the first respondent in not making proper and wide publicity of and posting to them the tender notice issued by the Ministry of Welfare inviting tenders from manufacturers/companies of hearing aids for purchase by voluntary organisations/registered societies etc. under the Government of India scheme of assistance to disabled persons for purchase/lifting of aids/appliances. The said tender notice was issued on 2.9.1994 with the information that the tenders should reach the office by 12.00 noon of 10.10.1994.

(2.) Briefly stated, the facts of the present writ petition are that the first petitioner are in the business of manufacturing hearing aids for the last about 40 years and are pioneers in the said industry and is the holder of 70% of the market share for the said product. Under the scheme of assistance to disabled persons, the Ministry of Welfare purchases fittings of aids/appliances which include walking sticks for the blind, tricycles for physically handicapped, artificial limbs for physically disabled persons as well as hearing aids for the deaf. For making aforesaid purchases the Ministry of Welfare invites yearly tenders for a rate contract and the practice followed by the Ministry of Welfare in that regard since 1987 is to advertise the invitation to tender in newspapers as well as to communicate by individual letters addressed to the manufacturers which are not more than 6 in number including the petitioners. It is stated that the normal practice of the first respondent was to mail the tender notices and also to publicise the tender notices in the newspapers. Accordingly the petitioners were expecting to receive the tender call notice in the normal course by May for the year 1985-86. However, the petitioners did not hear from the first respondent and subsequently came to learn that the first respondent had contrary to their usual practice advertised in the newspapers and had mailed tender call notices to some of the manufacturers only excluding the petitioners. Thereafter on coming to know about the aforesaid advertisement when the representative of the first petitioner on 10.10.1994 went to the office of the first respondent to lodge a protest against the alleged arbitrary practice of the first respondent of not inviting it to tender, the said representative was not allowed to participate in the proceedings. Hence the present writ petition has been filed.

(3.) Both the respondents No.1 & 2 have contested the present writ petition by filing the counter affidavit, wherein it has been stated that for the financial year 1995-96 commencing on 1.4.1995 the Directorate of Audio and Visual Publicity (Ministry of Information and Broadcasting) Government of India were requested to publish an open advertisement of the tender notice and the said advertisement was accordingly published in 12 leading newspapers of the country in English, Hindi, Oriya and Marathi languages. Besides the six manufacturers including the petitioners were also informed about the publishing of tender notice through the letter dated 2.9.1994 which were posted to the petitioners by ordinary process as in the previous years about the tender notice. It is further stated that the petitioner No.1 is maintaining a branch office in Delhi which is in geographical proximity of respondent No.1 and even otherwise the petitioner being fully conversant with the procedure should have kept themselves informed of the developments which are an annual feature. Accordingly, it was stated in both the counter affidavits that there are no reasonable grounds for seeking relief under Article 226 of the Constitution of India as no fundamental or statutory right of the petitioners has been violated.