(D 3.(‘Executive Engineer, Rural Engineering Service, Division—Balod, Tahsil- Balod, District—Durg, Chhattisgarh. f 4. Nagendra Chaudhury, S/o Late Shri Radhe Krishan Chaudhury, Aged 28, Occupation—Contractor, R/ o Gupta Chowk, Dhllirajhara, District— Durg, Chhattisgarh WRIT PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA FOR ISSUANCE OF APPROPRIATE WRIT/WRITS. DIRECTIONS ETC. \ IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BILASPUR CHHATTISGARH WRIT PETITION (C) No. Qg‘é /2010 Division Ednai, f Petitioner Khedu Ram Sahu S/o . Bhausingh Sahu, Aged 44 years, Occupation- Contractor, R/ o Village— Dhanapuri, Tahsil- Gurur, District—Burg, Chhattisgarh Versus Respondents LXState of Chhattisgarh, through its Secretary, Rural Engineering Service Department, D.K.S Bhawan, Raipur, Chhattisgarh 2f/Chief Engineer, Rural Engineering Welfare Service, Raipur, Chhattisgarh HIGH COURT OF CHHATTISGARH, BILASPUR DB: HON’BLE I.M. QUDDUSI & HON’BLE N.K. AGRAWAL, JJ WRIT PETITION UNDER ARTICLE 226 OF THE CONSTITUTION OF INDIA APPEARANCE: Mr. Rajeev Shrivastava, counsel for thc Petitioner. Mr, Yashwant Singh Thakur, Deputy Advocatc General with Miss Decpali Pandey, Panel Lawyer for the State] respondents 1 to 3 on advance copy. None for respondent no.4 though served. ORAL ORDER (05.08.2010) Per I.M. ognnusr, J 1; No one appears on behalf of Iespondent no.4 in the nrst round despite service of notice, therefore, the list is revised. Even in the second round, no One appears on his behalf. Hence, we proceeded to hear the arguments of the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner as also learned State Counsel. By this writ petition nled under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner mainly prays for the foHOWing relief(s): 10. 1 That this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to quash the impugned order dated 20.05.2010 passed by respondent no.3. w.P (c1 No.2546 or 2010 PETITIONER i ‘ Khedu Ram Sahu ' Vs. RESPONDENTS i ‘ State of Chhattisgaxh & 3 others l;f» 10.2 That this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to mst‘mjn the respondent no. 1 &om issuing &esh tender notice. 10.3 That this Hon’ble Court may kindly be pleased to direct the respondent Ital to proceed with the tender forms submitted in pursuance of tender notiee dated 28.04.2010. Brief facts of the case are that Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT) was issued by Respondent nod/Executive Engineer, Rural Engineering Service, Baiod, Distt. Burg, on 28.04.2010 inviting epphcations second time for the construch'on of High School Building at village Arkar, Commemial Complex (Atal Bazar) at village Palan', C.C. Road, Drainage 65 Shed in the Commercial Complex at village Palan'; Platform and Shed of Bazar at village Minitola. The last date of issuing tender forms was 10.05.2010 and the last date of receiving the forms was on or before 17:05.2010 upto 5.30 p.111. VThe tenders duly mled by the tenderers ivere to open on 18.05.2010. The petitioner and other participants submitted their tender forms alongwith the Security Amount/FDR Within time. However, on 17.05.2010, respondent no.4 made a complaint before respondent no.3/Execuh've Engineer which reads as under: faw~€suwfam€dml “imam, WWWddmdwamfaem-tggmmwew, Imiiit’mran latitém'enegmoaiwman0iddiemm nsmdwmefmmm [maideaiawdwm g in ,g A.n W WW! m:anqa%%a%%wmumim 23m?! 1w aWf that respondent no.4 had obtained The gist of the same is are to be submitted on 17.5.2010. H6 had gooc to Balod Post Oiiic‘c of Gunu Block which tender ‘ forms to deposit the i311 the tender Executive Engineer either edings. He with the tender form. d that FDR was also Sam6. a11ce1 the tender proce The petitioner and his companion namely Ashok did not allow him to Sahu of village Kibhar . form and as such he requested the to give him tender form or c had alsoinforme was sent to Collector, Durg and Copy of the said complaint in View of the said complaint, dent no.3 Executive Engineer did not tenders on the scheduled date and pas 20.05.2010, canceling the tender notice dated 28.4. d’counsel for the petitioner submits that the action of respondent no.3 in cancelling the te Incharge Minister, Durg. open the respon sed the order dated 2010‘ 4. Leame nder proceedings is the complaint dated 17‘05.2010 shows that numb er and mentioned the time, R when the tender form was allegedly date of the FD COgnizable Report dL However, he 10dged the Non— snatche r— :1 i $ Wm Iésqqmi mam msff ‘Wiffai‘r 3W Wnmawf (NCR) in the police station. $hough snatching of tender form and FDR is a cogn§7able o§ehgc, but’he did not mention that in the police statiOn and only lodged the FIR non-cognizable u/s 155 of the Code of Criminal Pmcedure to the extent that V tho petitioner and his companion Ashok Sahu had taken the tender form 8r. FDR hom him to deposit at the post omce Balod but they had not deposited and they had also not returned the form to him. The contents of the report lodged are reproduced as under: q.“ WW mew WW—Wmaztw (am 155 mum) Rafa? 17.5.2010 Wt‘f W ~29/2010 mam—mm 1 ,WédwWmw—wnzmndmaoa‘d 2.W1ftmgam€#mwqmw/Hmw~wa1w mash new atai’r B11 23 aq‘ mw awm aalfhgynwmwamW—Wmmméw Wm 4. m W W Rana Han W —17,5,2o1o 3} 10:30 Era} W arm d m mwmm mwdmmmscxpl mm€ Inmt-tairmfaww wamitEma‘fw wmdwméaifmatrRafnm emmwmmwmwmmwemwam mmmmwamw'mwmmmam mmmawmwmmwmmqegew _W%m11%nmmm6$ar€mata énmmgmmmm u‘Trfrmaml‘IRlr-Htl @WadWaRawWza/zmoa% WWWdwwwma‘tnl The time of incident has been mentioned as 10.30 a.m. near the Post ohice on 17.05.2010 but the time of lodging of report in the police station is 10.40 a.m., of the same date. On receipt of complaint along—with copy of NCR of respondent no.4, the Executive Engineer vide order dated 18.05.2010 extended the time of depositing the tender forms upto 3 p.111. of 21.5.2010. .It is no ones case that any one had raised objection to the extended time of submitting the tenders. Besides the above, there is contradiction between the complaint made by respondent no.4 before the Executive Engineer and the Non-Cognizable Report (NCR) lodged at the police station. At the police station he did not mention that the tender forms and FDRs were snatched by the petitioner and his companion. He had only mentioned that the form was taken to deposit but the same was not deposited. Even this has not been mentioned that the form was not allowed to be hlled by the petitioner. The time of incident has been shown as 10.30 a.m. when the form was allegedly taken by the petitioner to deposit at the post ohice but within 10 minutes the FIR (NCR) was lodged with an allegation that he has not deposited the tender form of respondent no.4 in the post oflce. It is not known as to how much is the distance from the place of incident to the place of police station and . , . how much time was taken to lodge the NCR, but the fact remains that within 10 minutes the FIR was lodged. It is apparent that lodging of the F.I.R. by respondent No.4, mentioning that the form was not deposited, was tainted with ill-motive. Respondent no.4 has not turned up to advance his arguments despite service of notice and this court has taken the case in the revised list. It appears that he intentionally did not prefer to lodge FIR of cognimble odence as he might have been anaid of police investigau'on. 8. The grievance started only when the Executive Engineer, all of a sudden, Iejected the tenders on 20.05.20 10 mentioning the reason that: the tender form of the contractor was not allowed to be hlled by the other contractors, therefore, there was no healthy competition in the tender process. It is to be noticed that the NIT in question was issued second time and the iirst NIT was also cancelled. In the return nled on behalf of respondents 1 to 3 it has not been mentioned that any enquiry was conducted at any point of time by the Executive Engineer or any o$cer before arriving at the conclusion that the tenders should be cancelled. 9. In the above circumstances, We are to see the conduct of the o$cers also. The hrst NIT was cancelled. The second NIT which was published in the newspaper has also been cancelled by the impugned order dt. 20.05.2010 without considering as to how much expenditure incurred hom the State exchequer wasting the public money. It is also a matter of consideration that in case a 3rd notice is invited and any of the contractor nles another NCR, the Executive Engineer or other ohicers will have no option to repeat the same thing as they cannot go contiary to their decisions made in past. In such circumstances when it appears before us that it is a preplanned action of respondent no.4 for getting the NIT postponed; we cannot sav at this stage i f I} direction/ observations. Sd/- t i Sdl- I.M.Quddusi i N. K. Agarwal ‘ Judge Judge k, Whether it was at the connivance of tha o$cers or not, but looking to their action it cannot be totally ruled out. Therefore, the action of respondent no.3] Executive Engineer appears to be arbitraly and malaf'lde. Considen'ng the facts and Circumstances of the case, we do not see any justincation in canceling the tenders on the ground of not allowing respondent no.4 to n11 the forms Whereas, in fact, nlling of the form was not required to be made at any particular place and the contractor] respondent no.4 was free to n11 up the form at his residence or at any place of privacy and there is contradiction between the complaint made before the Executive Engineer and the report lodged at the poh'ce stau'on, Therefore, ,we allow this petition and quash the impugned order dated 20.052010 contained in Annexure P—l and direct respondents 1 to 3 to proceed further. However, this will not preclude them to take any independent decision to accept any tender or reject the total tenders on any other ground if existing in their opinion. 11. This petition stands tinally disposed of with the above