NEW JHELUM CONSTRUCTION COMPANY Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On joint request, all the petitions were taken up together for final disposal/consideration.

(2.) The petitioner claims to have executed number of contracts both for the Government of Jammu and Kashmir as well as for Border Road organisation (hereinafter BRO), over a period of time. The petitioner has mentioned various contracts executed by the petitioner for the Government of Jammu and Kashmir, as also for the Border Road Organisation. It is stated that the tenders No. CE(P) DPK-10 of 2019-20, dtd. 29/11/2019, and CE(P) DPK-11 of 2019-20, dtd. 29/11/2019, came to be floated by the respondents and the petitioner being eligible on all counts participated therein by submitting its tenders and in respect of certain plant/machineries as to its availability, tax invoices were obtained from concerned agencies for procurement of plant and machinery to be utilised for execution of work, in case of allotment of contract. The requirement of the said documents arose on account of condition No. 6.3.1 of tender document, however, the said tenders of the petitioner were not accepted, regarding which suitable action came to be taken by the petitioner firm. This, however, did not find favour with the authorities, as is evident from the communication dtd. 27/1/2020, wherein the rejection of the tender has been held to be valid. The petitioner realizing that inadvertently some documents have been uploaded which were not relevant so far as tenders in question were concerned, accordingly informed the respondents vide communication dtd. 5/2/2020, that the petitioner no longer intends to participate in the tender that may be deemed to have been closed together with the withdrawal of the writ petitions filed by the petitioner before the High Court of Himachal Pradesh at Shimla, apprehending rejection of the tenders. Since the respondents were asking for uploading of the deficient documents and not accepting the documents submitted by the petitioner, vide communication dtd. 19/5/2021 and 7/6/2021, the petitioner informed the respondents that similar documents in respect of other bidders have been taken into consideration. Yet vide communication dtd. 5/6/2021, these documents and reasons for placing reliance thereupon were not accepted by the respondents and appeal was rejected on this ground. As the respondents were adopting partisan role in respect of acceptance of bids, the petitioner was constrained to file a complaint before the Chief Vigilance Officer, vide communication dtd. 17/6/2021, which came to be confirmed by the petitioner in terms of communication dtd. 16/8/2021. It is also stated that it appeared to be a turning point in the entire case as respondents, in particular respondent No. 4 took it as personal issue and vide communication dtd. 16/8/2021, issued a show cause notice calling upon the petitioner why action be not taken against him for submitting the forged/fake documents. This communication came to be issued only after the petitioner approached the office of Chief Vigilance Officer against biased role of the respondents in scrutiny of the tender bids. The said show cause notice came to be replied by the petitioner vide reply dtd. 13/9/2021 and 17/9/2021. However, without appreciating facts in correct perspective and only as a vendetta, order impugned dtd. 18/10/2021 came to be issued by the respondents whereby a severe penalty of banning the petitioner for a period of 18 months in participating the bids, came to be issued.

(3.) The petitioner being aggrieved of the order dtd. 18/10/2021 (hereinafter to be referred as the order impugned) by virtue of which the petitioner has been barred for a period of 18 months from participating in any tender from the date of issuance of this order, has filed the present petition thereby challenging the order impugned on the following grounds: