SANGRAM BALAVANT REPE Vs. EXECUTIVE ENGINEER

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Rule. Rule made returnable forthwith. With the consent of the learned counsel for the parties, we proceed to decide the writ petition at the admission stage itself.

(2.) This petition, filed under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, seeks to assail the validity of the impugned decision whereby the tender, in which the petitioner had participated and had quoted the lowest bid, has been cancelled.

(3.) Submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that the impugned decision to cancel the tender is absolutely arbitrary and unreasonable as the petitioner had qualified technically whereupon the financial bid was also opened, where he was declared to be the lowest tenderer, despite that now the tender process has been cancelled taking a plea that none of the tenderers had technically qualified. He, thus, submits that once the petitioner and other two tenderers were declared to have technically qualified, based on which the financial bid was also opened, it was not legally permissible for the respondents to have revisited their decision and cancel the entire tender process.