KINECO PVT LTD Vs. WEST CENTRAL RAILWAYS

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In the instant petition, the petitioner, a private limited Company, has sought a writ of Mandamus commanding the West Central Railway, Jabalpur, to consider its commercial bid submitted pursuant to the tender notice dated 13-4-2008. Further prayer has been made to quash the letter of approval dated 25-1-2010 contained in annexure P/5 in favour of respondents No. 3 and 4 and the communication dated 4-2-2010 dismissing the appeal preferred by the petitioner against non-acceptance of its bid.

(2.) The facts leading to filing of the present petition, briefly stated, are that the petitioner is engaged in manufacturing of Fibre Reinforced Plastic Products for train interiors. The respondent No. 2 Controller of Stores, West Central Railway, Jabalpur, vide notification dated 21-10-2008 invited tender for the work of design, supply and supervision of installation of furnishings and fittings for world class rake railway coach interiors at coach rehabilitation workshop, Bhopal. Under the aforesaid tender notification work of 111 coaches was to be undertaken. It appears that a pre-bid conference was held on 22-9-2008 in which nine bidders participated. However, only four tenderers including the petitioner and respondents No. 3 and 4 submitted their bids. The petitioner has claimed that its offer was the lowest with a special discount of 16% on the engineering, development and supervision of installation cost, hence the respondents ought to have accepted its bid. However, when bid of petitioner was not accepted, it preferred an appeal on 7-9-2009 before the General Manager of the respondent No. 1, which was rejected vide order dated 4-2-2010 on the ground that the bid being consolidated was found to be not in terms and conditions contained in tender notice.

(3.) The respondents No. 1 and 2 in their return pointed out that as per clause 4 of the tender booklet Part II, in case of multi item or single item with multi consignees, the bid was required to be submitted item-wise because the inter-se position of the bidders was to be decided item-wise and consignee-wise, unless otherwise some other evaluation criteria is specifically mentioned in the tender. Clause 4.2 of the tender provides that only unconditional rates quoted will be considered for determining inter se ranking. Conditions incorporated in the Tender Booklet Part-II were known to the petitioner. However, petitioner offered a consolidated financial bid which was impermissible as the tender was a multi-item tender and, therefore, inter se ranking of the tenderers could only be decided item wise and not in a consolidated manner. It was mandatory for the petitioner to have submitted its commercial bid item wise. Since it failed to do so, therefore, the commercial bid of the petitioner did not deserve consideration. It was not possible to assess the commercial bid of the petitioner. As per Central Vigilance Commission guidelines only lowest bidders were called for negotiation. The letter of approval has rightly been issued to respondents 3 and 4 and there is nothing arbitrary and unfair about it.