PRABHU CABS Vs. PADAVETTAMAN TRANSPORT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff is the petitioner. THE plaintiff is carrying on the business of hiring motor vehicles, vans and cars on a rental basis. THE respondents 2 and 3 called for tender in the month of April, 2000 for hiring vans and cars for Chennai telephones. Since the petitioner had already operated vehicles for the respondents during the years 1995-97 he applied for the tender. THE tender conditions laid down certain criteria to be satisfied before the respondent accepted the tender. THE important conditions for the purpose of deciding this civil revision petition are Clauses 6, 7 and 8, were extracted hereunder: (6) Tenderers should indicate Registration No. of Vehicles registered in their own personal name/firm and should produce Xerox copies of Registration Certificates of the vehicles concerned. THE tenderers should have minimum "FIVE VEHICLES" in their names or in the names of their firms. Further, the tenderers should furnish copies of Agreement entered into by them with other parties, if they intend to supply vehicles whose registration happen to be in the name of third parties, and in such cases they should also enclose copies of Registration Certificates of the vehicles belonging to the third party with whom the tenderers have regular agreement. THE tenderers should also have necessary PERMIT under Motor Vehicles Act and Insurance cover for Transport. they should have necessary infrastructures like phone connection in the office address, vehicle she etc., and have their office and operation function at "Chennai". (7) THE tenderer should ensure that vehicles having Registration in the year 1994 onwards only are deployed to users in Chennai Telephones that too in good condition in all respects. (8) THE tenderer should enclose a copy of his latest Income Tax clearance certificate while submitting the tender itself (i.e.) with the Annexure II. THE approved tenderer will be required to furnish the copy of the latest year's Income Tax Certificate also within the time frame to be specified by the Chennai Telephones. Non production of the same within such time frame can lead to cancellation of the contract at any time, at the sole discretion of Deputy General Manager (A8PG), Chennai Telephones." Clause 18 provides for technical and financial evaluation.

(2.) ACCORDING to the petitioner, the respondent had awarded the contract to undeserving persons without following the main tender conditions and therefore, the suit was filed for declaration that the finalisation of tender dated 29.2.2000 was null and void, for mandatory injunction to consider the tenderers, according to the tender condition and for a permanent injunction restraining the respondents from awarding the contract to any other person. Interim injunction was asked for in I.A.No.11900 of 2000 and it was granted. The petition filed by respondents 2 and 3 to vacate the injunction was dismissed. It must be mentioned at this juncture that the petitioner had originally filed the suit only against respondents 2 and 3. He had not chosen to implead the persons whose tender had been accepted by respondents 2 and 3 viz., the first respondent herein who is the successful tenderer in respect of supply of cars and the fourth respondent herein is the successful tenderer in respondent of vans. With leave of the Court, the first respondent herein filed C.M.A.Nos.154 and 140 of 2000 challenging the order of the trial Judge. The learned IV Additional Judge allowed the appeals. Aggrieved by that the present C.R.P.Nos.255 and 256 of 2001 have been filed.

(3.) HE referred to the judgment reported in Naba Kumar Hazra and another v. Radhashyam Mahish and others Naba Kumar Hazra and another v. Radhashyam Mahish and others Naba Kumar Hazra and another v. Radhashyam Mahish and others 34 L.W. 518 in which the Privy Council held that while no suit is to be defeated by reason of non-joinder of parties it would not have any application in the case that the defect was brought to the notice of the Court and he had ample opportunity to remedy the same.