MANISHA AND MULAY Vs. A KRISHNA REDDY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal is directed against order dated 13.6.2007 passed by the learned Single Judge in Writ Petition No.6914 of 2007, whereby he quashed the decision of the State Government to permit Chief Engineer, FFC (SRSP) and SSP, Karimnagar (respondent No.3 herein) to open the tender of M/s.Manisha and Mulay (JV) (the appellant herein) and consider the same along with other bids. The Facts:

(2.) The Superintending Engineer, SRSP, Circle No.1 (respondent No.4 herein) invited tenders through e-procurement platform for the work of formation of Earth Dam, construction of Spillway, Head Regulators on Left and Right Side, Lead Channels, High Level B.T. Road including construction of DLR Bridge, two irrigation canals on both sides including Distributory System up to water course level and other allied works including Investigation, Designing and Estimation of Mothe Vagu Reservoir Designing and Estimation of Mothe Vagu Reservoir with FRL + 318.00 M for storing live capacity of 0.965 TMC at MDDL + 313.500 near Mothe (Village), Ramadugu (Mandal), Karimnagar District. The last date for submission of 'online' tender was 20.11.2006. Later on, the same was extended to 5.12.2006. The date for price bid opening, which was originally fixed as 24.11.2006, was also changed to 11.12.2006.

(3.) In all, nine parties including the appellant and respondent No.1 submitted their bids. The price bids of eight parties were opened on 11.12.2006 and it was found that the bid given by respondent No.1 (Rs.79,02,47,0007-) was the lowest. The bid of the appellant was not opened on the ground that the scanned copy of the Bank Guarantee (BG) was not seen 'online'. On the next day i.e. 12.12.2006, the representative of the appellant submitted representation to respondent No.4 that its bid was competitive and there was no justification to exclude the same from competition. He claimed that BG was also uploaded, but due to some reason, the same was not displayed 'online'. He pleaded that the hard copies of BG and Demand Draft (DD) had been submitted before opening the price bid and the details of BG i.e. the name of the bank, the number of instrument, the amount and the date of issue were displayed and the Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) documents i.e. file name and ZIP name and BG comprising of three pages was also displayed. Respondent No.4, vide letter No.SE/FFC-1/ J/DB/AE2/534/2006/473/H, dated 14.12.2006 forwarded the representation of the appellant to respondent No.3, who, in turn, submitted the matter to the Commissionerate of Tenders comprising Commissioner, COT, Chief Engineerfrom Irrigation and Command Area Development, in addition, two Chief Engineers of Roads and Buildings Department. The Commissionerate of Tenders, after making a reference to C.1 India Private Limited (Website Managing Company) (respondent No.5 herein) and considering its opinion, recommended that the tender of the appellant be treated as qualified because there was no willful suppression of information to the Tender Notifying Authority. For the sake of convenient reference, the relevant extracts of the Minutes of the meeting of the Commissionerate of Tenders held on 07.02.2007 are reproduced below: <FRM>JUDGEMENT_745_ALT5_2007Html1.htm</FRM>