NAVAYUGA ENGINEERING COMPANY LIMITED Vs. VISAKHAPATNAM PORT TRUST

JUDGEMENT

(1.) This appeal has arisen from the judgment in a proceeding under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

(2.) Writ petitioner-appellant has claimed that it is an Engineering Contractors Company which submitted its tender to the Visakhapatnam Port Trust for the construction of a multipurpose Berth in response to the tender notification dated 16-3-1996 issued by the Port Trust. It is alleged, the Port Trust decided not to open or consider the tender submitted by the petitioner in view of the filing of an F.I.R. by the C.B.I., against it and others alleging the commission of certain offences in connection with a different work contract previously executed by the petitioner. The said action, the petitioner-appellant had challenged as amounting of blacklisting the petitioner-appellant without affording any opportunity of being heard to him and merely on the basis of a certain F.I.R., which according to it (the petitioner) is not warranted at all. Thus, the rights of the petitioner under Articles 14, 19(1)(g) of the Constitution are violated. There has, however, been no dispute before the Court as respects the qualification of the petitioner-appellant and/or the tender which it has submitted. Learned single Judge has, however, referred to several authorities and culled out the principles under which the Court limits its judicial review jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and rightly stated that judicial restraint is the order of the day, the Court does not sit as a Court of appeal but merely reviews the manner in which the decision was made, the Court does not have the expertise to correct the administrative decision and it does not substitute its own decision for the administrative decision of the competent authority. Learned single Judge has also rightly taken notice of the principle that the terms of the invitation to tender cannot be open to judicial scrutiny because the invitation to tender is in the realm of contract, that normally speaking, the decision to accept the tender or award the contract is reached by process of negotiations through several tiers, that more often than not, such decisions are made qualitatively by experts and observed :"I am prepared to assume that the impugned action in this case amounts to a sort of blacklisting as it has been decided by the respondent not to open or consider the bid of the petitioner."and posed the question whether the petitioner has been given a reasonable opportunity of making its representation or not. The Court thereafter has noted that the petitioner was called upon to give its representation, if any, in the matter but before making any representation the petitioner rushed to the Court. The Court gave an interim direction pursuant to which the petitioner made its representation and the Port Trust, as directed by the Court, considered the same but rejected it on 20-2-1997. Thus, in the proceeding, the order dated 20-2-1997 has been impugned. Learned single has, however, recorded as follows :-

(3.) In course of the appeal, however, the Court on 10-6-1997 after hearing the learned counsel for the parties wanted to know from the C.B.I. whether investigation into the F.I.R. had shown any prima facie material of the involvement of the appellant in the alleged crime. After some adjournments, the Superintendent of Police, C.B.I., Visakhapatnam has given a report by way of an affidavit stating inter alia as follows :-