S.B. CONSTRUCTION Vs. STATE OF WEST BENGAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) It is claimed in the writ petition that the first petitioner is a registered partnership firm and the second petitioner is a partner thereof. It is also claimed that the first petitioner is a reputed Government contractor experienced, inter alia, in the work of construction, maintenance and repair of Government roads.

(2.) Intending to execute the work of construction of road from Rambhadrapur to Asudchak in the district of Paschim Mindapore, the first petitioner had responded to a Notice Inviting Bid (hereafter the NIB) for road works dated Aug. 9, 2016 issued by the West Bengal State Rural Development Agency (hereafter the 'WBSRDA'). In terms of the NIB, the bids were required to be submitted on-line and manual submissions of bids was not permissible.

(3.) It is not in dispute that the first petitioner had submitted the technical and financial bids in the prescribed formats, on-line. However, the bid was not considered responsive on the ground of absence of documents certifying payments received by the first petitioner for contracts in progress or completed during the last five years (hereafter the payment certificates). Correspondence followed, which did not yield any fruitful result prompting the petitioners to invoke the writ jurisdiction of this Court by presenting this writ petition dated Sept. 27, 2016.