JITENDRA KUMAR BISOYI Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) PETITIONER in this writ application has prayed for declaration that the contract awarded in favour of the opposite party No. 5 by opposite parties 1 to 4 is illegal and inoperative and for a further direction to award the contract in favour of the petitioner.

(2.) CASE of the petitioner is that he has registered himself as A -Class Contractor and has been participating in different tender process. Pursuant to the tender call notice dated 6.1.2000 he submitted his tender for the work 'excavation of pazen miner including construction of its structures in flood zone'. Apart from the petitioner, two other Contractors, namely, Sanat Kumar Panda and Narendra Nath Sahu (opposite party No. 5) also submitted tenders. Tender papers were opened on 29.2.2000 and on verification of the tender papers, the Executive Engineer (opposite party No. 4) prepared a final report on 3.3.2000 for acceptance of the same by the Superintending Engineer. In the said report, the Executive Engineer intimated that the approved tender schedule amount was Rs. 7,88, 423.60 whereas the petitioner had quoted Rs. 7,38,21 2.74 i.e. 0.153% less than the estimated cost and Sanat Kumar Panda had quoted price of 60.33% in excess of the estimated cost and the opposite party No. 5 had quoted price which is 40.34% in excess of the estimated cost. Therefore, the petitioner was the lowest tenderer, opposite party No. 5 was the second lowest tenderer and Sanat Kumar Panda was the 3rd lowest tenderer. But the petitioner learnt that the Chief Engineer has taken a decision to award the contract to opposite party No. 5 who was second lowest tenderer and had quoted 40.34% in excess of the estimated cost ignoring the tender submitted by the petitioner which was lower than the estimated cost. Therefore, this writ application has been filed challenging the said decision of the Chief Engineer to award the contract in favour of the opposite party No. 5.

(3.) FROM the pleadings of the parties, it is evident that the petitioner's tender had not been kept out of consideration. On two grounds, the said tender filed by the petitioner was not accepted, i.e. the petitioner had not submitted the required certificate with regard to relationship with any of the staff of the office and the petitioner did not have experience to execute the work. Reliance has been placed by the learned counsel for the State on Clause 13 of the Tender Paper which runs as follows :