ADITYA NARANYAN MAHASUPAKAR Vs. STATE OF ORISSA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The petitioner in this writ application assails Annexure-1, a notice issued by the Tahasiidar, Bhubaneswar calling for applications for settlement of a sand quarry as well as the decision of the opposite parties in settling the sand quarry in favour of the opposite party No. 5.

(2.) The case of the petitioner is that an advertisement was published in daily "The Sainaj and 'The Dhariti on 1-2-2004 for auction of certain sand sources including the present quarry. Pursuant to such advertisement, three applications were filed including that of the petitioner, but opposite party No. 5 never participated in the said auction. The price offered by the petitioner was the highest, but the upset price fixed by the Tahasiidar being much more than the highest price offered by the petitioner, the said auction notice was cancelled. Similarly, at subsequent stages two more auctions were held but no one could match the upset price fixed by the Tahasiidar. After three attempts the authorities having failed to get an offer matching the upset price, all the bidders who participated in three auctions were called for negotiation. However, while giving such notice for negotiation in Annexure-2, persons who never participated in the earlier auctions were also given opportunity to attend the negotiation. The further case of the petitioner is that in the negotiation held the petitioner again offered the highest price i.e. Rs.3,40,000/-. However, it did not match the upset price fixed by the Tahasiidar and the sand source was not settled with any one. Subsequently, the petitioner came to know that the said source has been settled with opposite party No. 5 by private negotiation and challenging the same, he has filed this writ application.

(3.) A counter-affidavit has been filed by the opposite party No. 4, Tahasiidar, Bhubaneswar. It is stated in the counter-affidavit that the upset price was fixed by the Tahasiidar at Rs. 13,65,000/-, but in all the three auctions held the participants could not match the upset price as a result of which the auctions had to be cancelled. It is also stated in paragraph 4 of the counter-affidavit that pursuant to auction notice, an auction was held on 11-2-2004 and the petitioner offered Rs. 6.68.000/-whereas the other two participants offered Rs. 4,51.000/- and Rs. 4,11,000/- respectively. When the auction was held for the second time, the petitioner offered Rs.3,30.000/- whereas two other participants offered Rs. 2,57,000/- and Rs. 1,90,000;- respectively. Since the second offer submitted by the petitioner did not match the upset price and was also lower than the first offer, it was decided to cancel the auction. The third auction was held on 25-3-2004 and in the said auction the petitioner offered Rs. 3.30.000/- whereas two other participants offered Rs. 2,50,000/-and Rs. 1,90,000/-. In view of such offer, again the auction was cancelled. In order to fetch maximum amount, though three auctions were held, nobody matched the upset price fixed by the Tahasildar and a decision was taken to settle the source on negotiation. Pursuant to such decision, the three bidders including the petitioner were noticed and the petitioner offered highest price of Rs. 3,40,000/-. One of the bidders namely, Dasarathi Garabadu did not turn up for negotiation and another bidder namely, Bishnu Pr. Panda offered Rs. 3,10,000/-. The opposite party No. 5 who had never participated in the earlier auctions offered price of Rs. 3,51,250/-. It is further case of the opposite parties that had the source rot been settled in favour of opposite party No. 5, who offered the highest price, operation of the sand source for the current year would have been stopped and there would have been loss to the revenue of the State Government.