NARANG COLD STORAGE Vs. STATE OF M.P

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The Petitioner has filed the present petition through its partner Mr.Abhimanyu Narang being aggrieved by the order dated 04.05.2020 (Annexure P/1), order dated 06.05.2020 (Annexure P/9) & fresh NIT No.764 dated 07.05.2020 (Annexure P/10).

(2.) The petitioner being a registered partnership firm is engaged in the operation, maintenance and management of the cold storage since 2009 situated at New Sabzi Mandi Campus, Indore by virtue of the contract given by the M.P. State Co-Operative Marketing Federation Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'the MARKFED') The period of the lease had been expired in September 2019, therefore, respondent No.2 Federation issued an NIT No.684 for operation, maintenance, and management of the aforesaid cold storage on lease for ten years period. The last date for submission of the tender was on 27.01.2020 and the opening of the technical bid was scheduled on 29.01.2020 at 10.30 A.M. However, later on, certain conditions of NIT were amended and the date of opening of technical bid was extended up to 08.02.2020. Apart from others, the petitioner also participated in the said tender process. The technical bids were opened on 18.02.2020 and out of 7 tenderers, the petitioner was declared qualified for opening of financial bid. On 18.02.2020 the financial bids were opened and the petitioner was declared successful tenderer as H1. The final result of the opening of the bid was uploaded on the Government official website displaying the petitioner as H1.

(3.) It is important to mention here that no Letter of Acceptance (LOA) was issued to the petitioner by the respondents. All of a sudden, the Chief Engineer, M.P State Co-operative Marketing Federation, Bhopal vide letter dated 04.05.2020 (Annexure P/1) has cancelled the NIT No.684 due to some technical reasons. Being aggrieved by the aforesaid action, the petitioner submitted a detailed representation to the Chief Engineer on 05.05.2020. The tender inviting authority vide E-mail dated 06.05.2020 has informed the petitioner that the tender has been rejected during financial evaluation by duly constituted committee for the reason H1 RATES NOT ACCEPTED.