RADHAMOHAN PATRA Vs. STATE

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner who was one of the tenderers for the work

(2.) . When the matter was listed for admission on 27-9-1991, we had called upon the State Counsel to produce the tender papers of the petitioner. On 30-9-1991, the tender papers were produced by the learned Additional Government Advocate and we noticed that on the covers of the two envelopes, there was an endorsement to the effect "Received at 3.10 p.m.". We, therefore, called upon the learned Additional Government Advocate to file a counter affidavit so that the writ application could be disposed of.

(3.) The State has filed a counter affidavit being sworn to by opposite party No. 2 and the stand taken in the said counter affidavit is that as the tenders of the petitioner were received after due time, the same were not taken into consideration. It has been further stated that the tender box was itself open till 3.00 p.m. and yet the fact that the tender papers were not put inside the box intrinsically indicates that the Courier finding the box to be closed and sealed delivered the same to Shri Fakir Charan Pati, the Senior Diarist of the office who had mentioned the time of receipt on the covers. According to the deponent of the counter-affidavit, it was not necessary to give the time on the acknowledgment receipts and, therefore, Annexures 4 and 5 do not bear any time. Shri Fakir Charan Pati, the Senior Diarist of the office of the Chief Engineer, has also filed an affidavit stating therein that he received the two packets from a messenger of Dolphin Service on 28-6-1991 at 3.10 p.m. and as he found that those were the two tender papers he immediately handed over the same to the Superintending Engineer Shri B. C. Hota, who was authorised by the Chief Engineer to open the tender papers. The original tender papers with the covers were also produced before us and on scrutiny we find that those two packets bear the signatures of Shri Pati with the time of receipt to be 3.10 p.m. as well as the endorsement of Shri B. C. Hota, the Superintending Engineer, that the tenders cannot be considered being received beyond time.