C.W.P No. 18529 of 2007 ::1:: IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH C.W.P No. 18529 of 2007 Date of decision : September 03, 2008 Hem Raj Goyal, ...... Petitioner through Mr.Hemen Aggarwal, Advocate v. State of Punjab and others, ...... Respondents through Mr.Piyush Kant Jain, Addl.A.G.Punjab for respondents No.1 to 3. Mr.V.K.Kaushal, Advocate for Mr.B.R.Mahajan, Advocate for respondent No.4. CORAM : HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE ADARSH KUMAR GOEL HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE AJAY TEWARI *** 1. Whether Reporters of Local Newspapers may be allowed to see the judgment ? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not ? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest ? *** AJAY TEWARI, J The present writ petition has been filed for the following reliefs:- “Civil Writ Petition under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India for issuance of a writ, order or direction especially in the nature of mandamus directing the official respondents not to make the payment of the printing bills to respondent No.4 as he has been allotted the printing work at a much higher rate than offered by the petitioner and, thus, save the exchequer of the C.W.P No. 18529 of 2007 ::2:: government. The rates quoted by the petitioner were the lowest, even the work has been allotted to respondent No.4, taking illegal and hyper technical objection, thus, causing loss to the government exchequer and financial loss to the petitioner as well, which is quite clear from the documents supplied by the respondents under the Right to Information Act, 2005; And/or for issuance of a writ in the nature of mandamus directing the respondents to pay to the petitioner compensation amounting to Rs.2,50,000/- for not allotting the printing work to him even though his quotation was the lowest; And/or any other writ, order or direction which this Hon'ble Court deems fit and proper in the facts and circumstances may kindly be passed.” A perusal of the above reliefs shows that not only has the tender been awarded, even the work has been completed. The allegations are that the petitioner had offered lower rate than respondent No.4 and, thus, was entitled to be awarded the contract. In the written statement it has been averred that the tender of the petitioner was conditional in so much as he had made the following requests :- “1. Due to circumstances beyond our control the supply period may please be extended. 2. Oral bid negotiation may be done.” It is averred that it being a conditional offer the same could not C.W.P No. 18529 of 2007 ::3:: be considered. Section 7 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 lays down as follows:- “7. Acceptance must be absolute.- In order to convert a proposal into a promise, the acceptance must- (1) be absolute and unqualified; (2) be expressed in some usual and reasonable manner, unless the proposal prescribes the manner in which it is to be accepted. If the proposal prescribes a manner in which it is to be accepted, and the acceptance is not made in such manner, the proposer may, within a reasonable time after the acceptance is communicated to him, insist that his proposal shall be accepted in the prescribed manner, and not otherwise; but, if he fails to do so, he accepts the acceptance.” In view of the above, we find that the tender of the petitioner was rightly excluded from evaluation. This writ petition is, therefore, dismissed with no order as to costs. ( AJAY TEWARI ) JUDGE ( ADARSH KUMAR GOEL ) JUDGE September 03, 2008 'kk'