SURYANARAYAN MOHANTY Vs. STATE OF ODISHA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) ASSAILING the decision of the Technical Evaluation Committee disqualifying the petitioner in the technical bid vide Annexure -9, the petitioner has filed the present writ petition.

(2.) THE case of the petitioner is that he is a registered Special Class Contractor. Pursuant to the Tender Call Notice issued by the Chief Engineer (DPI & Roads), Odisha, Office of EIC (Civil), Nirman Soudha, Bhubaneswar -opposite party No. 2 on 21.02.2014 for the work "Improvement to Barikpur -Dhamnagar road from 0/0 to 9/660 Km under ACA Scheme for the year 2013 -14", the petitioner had submitted his bids along with turn over certificate, lease agreement dated 3.8.13 for hiring of equipments on lease basis. The opposite party No. 6 had also submitted his bid in respect of the said work. While the matter stood thus, the opposite party No. 2 sent a letter on 7.6.2014 to the petitioner indicating him that the allegation had been made that the lease agreement submitted by him in the tender for some of the machinery particularly owned by M/s. S.S. Infra Projects Pvt. Ltd. had been seized and taken into possession by the financer long before the agreement. The petitioner was asked to clarify the same. He submitted clarification on 18.6.2014 stating that the machineries were not seized by the finance company, nor in possession of third party. On 27.6.2014, vide Annexure -6, the opposite party No. 2 sent a letter to the petitioner and opposite party No. 6 to attend the office on 3.7.2014 at 4.00 pm for verification of originals of all the scanned documents uploaded in the technical bid. On 30.7.2014, the opposite party No. 2 also sent a letter to extend the validity of the tender for a further period of 90 days. On 8.8.2014, he extended the validity of the tender. The further case of the petitioner is that the opposite party No. 6 had submitted forged documents, i.e., tax invoice relating to Mini Batching Plant complete RMG 800. The petitioner submitted a representation on 18.6.2014 drawing the attention of the opposite party No. 2 to the said fact vide Annexure -8 series. Again he submitted a representation on 11.8.2014 about the manipulation of documents submitted by opposite party No. 6. But the same was not heeded to. While the matter stood thus, on 1.9.2014 at about 11.30 A.M., the opposite party No. 2 floated in the website the proceeding of the Technical Evaluation Committee held on 27.7.2014 at about 11 A.M. disqualifying him in the technical bid. The decision was taken on the basis of the spot verification report of the Executive Engineer, Bhadrak (R&B) Division, Bhadrak -opposite party No. 5 and the clarification received from M/s. SREI Equipment Finance Ltd. Thereafter the opposite parties opened the price bid of opposite party No. 6 on 1.9.2014 and found that he has quoted 9.7% excess than the estimated cost of the value of work. The petitioner has quoted the price bid at 9.2% less than the estimated cost. In the event, the tender is finalized in favour of opposite party No. 6 then the State will lose public revenue of Rs. 92,61,000/ -.

(3.) OPPOSITE party No. 6 has also filed a counter affidavit. The case of the opposite party No. 6 is that after submission of technical bid, he found that a false lease agreement had been filed by the petitioner at the time of submission of technical bid. Thereafter, he filed an objection on 22.5.2014 stating that the lease agreement submitted by the petitioner with regard to the machinery had already been seized by the financer M/s. SREI Equipment Finance Ltd. Thereafter the petitioner had also filed a complaint before the opposite party No. 2 against him. After receiving complaints from both the sides, opposite party No. 2 called upon both the bidders to appear on 3.7.2014 for verification of the original documents. The spot verification of the plant site of opposite party No. 6 was made by the opposite party No. 5. After spot verification, he submitted a report stating that the machineries were available on the plant site. The Committee after taking into consideration the report submitted by the opposite party No. 5 and clarification from the financer M/s. SREI Equipment Finance Ltd. qualified the opposite party No. 6 and accordingly executed the agreement and issued work order.