CWP No.3292 of 2009 1 N THE HIGH COURTOF PUNJAB AND HARYANA, CHANDIGARH. CWP No. 3292 of 2009 Date of decision: 3.3.2009 Jaswant Singh and others ....Petitioners. vs. Food Corporation of India ....Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE J.S.KHEHAR. HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE NAWAB SINGH. --- Present: Mr.Namit Kumar, Advocate for the petitioners. . -- J.S.KHEHAR,J. (Oral) The petitioners claim to be engaged in the business of handling and transportation of food grains. They also claim, that they were regularly engaged by the respondent i.e., the Food Corporation of India when contracts were issued by the Food Corporation of India for handling and transportation of food grains depotwise. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners, that the Food Corporation of India has now disbanded the scheme of issuing contracts depotwise by engaging a single contractor for all the depots in a district. This action of the respondent, according to the learned counsel for the petitioners, has had the effect of excluding the petitioners from the tender process. It is the contention of the learned counsel for the petitioners, that when contracts were being issued depotwise the petitioners used to execute the same responsibility at rates below the schedule of rates, whereas, since last year when the scheme has changed and contracts are issued districtwise the tenderers have been claiming 100% or more above CWP No.3292 of 2009 2 the scheduled rates. This, according to the learned counsel for the petitioners, has resulted in a public loss inasmuch as, the Food Corporation of India is having to pay much more than it used to pay for the same contracts prior to the change of the scheme. We have considered the aforesaid submissions advanced by the learned counsel for the petitioners. First and foremost there is no material on the record of this case, on the basis of which one can arrive at the conclusion, that the petitioners were ever engaged in contracts by the Food Corporation of India for handling and transportation of food grains. Secondly, the claim of the petitioners on the issue of excessive payments at the hands of the Food Corporation of India, emerges from the averments made in paragraph 4 of the writ petition. Paragraph 4 of the writ petition is being extracted hereunder:- “ That by inviting district wise tenders, cost of execution of work has increased several times but unmindful of it, the respondent is not bothered of such a huge loss being suffered by the FCI at the cost of public exchequer. As has been submitted earlier, the outgoing contract was also executed District wise and in the said execution of work, the FCI suffered huge losses in the awarding of the said district wise contract as is clear from the comparative table of previous rates when the contract was awarded Depot-wise and the rate computed proportionately when the contract was awarded district-wise. CWP No.3292 of 2009 3 Name of Depot Rates as per Depotwise contracts Rates as per Districtwise contract proportionately depotwise. Labour rate Tpt Rate per qtl.(Rs.) Labour Rate Tpt Rate per qtl.(Rs.) Pipli 74% BSOR 2.12 101% ASOR 4.00 Ladwa 6%BSOR 6.24 101% ASOR 16.00 Radaur 30%ASOR 6.66 125% ASOR 12.54 Naraingarh 36%BSOR 6.24 125% ASOR 12.54 Shahbad(M) 23% BSOR 1.85 101 % ASOR 4.00 Dhand 100% ASOR 101% ASOR 3.30 Ambala .. 6.50 8.54 There is no material on the record of this case to establish how the aforesaid compilation was made by the petitioners. Neither any contract executed by the Food Corporation of India, when contracts were issued depotwise has been placed on the record of this case, nor any contract issued by the Food Corporation of India after the districtwise scheme was implemented has been placed on the record of this case. In view of the above, it is not possible for us to accept the conclusions drawn in paragraph 4 of the writ petition, which are merely oral assertions at the hands of the petitioners. For the reasons recorded hereinabove , we find no merit in this petition and the same is accordingly dismissed. ( J.S.Khehar) Judge (Nawab Singh) Judge March 3, 2009 rk CWP No.3292 of 2009 4