IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA CWJC No.1499 of 2010 M/S CHAMPION GROUP OF COMPANIES Versus CENTRAL WEREHOUSING CORPORATION & ORS. ----------- 3 9.3.2010 I.A. No. 2213 of 2010 on behalf of one Rakesh Kumar Gupta has been filed for intervening in the present writ application. His stand is that even his technical bid has arbitrarily been rejected by the respondents. He also has vested interest in the adjudication. I.A. No. 2213 of 2010 is rejected because if the petitioner has any grievance due to rejection he has a separate cause of action and he can very well move the High Court in this regard separately. This Interlocutory application is misplaced. The present writ application has been filed by the petitioner seeking a direction upon respondent no.2, namely, Regional Manager, Central Warehousing Corporation not to accept the tender of M/s Singh Transport, private respondent no.3 for various reasons urged in the writ application. The background to the present dispute is that a notice inviting tender was issued by Central Warehousing Corporation (hereinafter referred to as “Corporation”) for handling and transporting of certain food grains etc. in the district of Bhabua at Mohania. There were many participants to the notice inviting tender. Petitioner was one of them. Technical bids were opened and the technical bids of five participants out of six were found to be faulty for one reason or the other. Private respondent - 2 - no.3 was the only successful bidder and the contract has therefore come to be awarded in his favour. First contention on behalf of the petitioner is that there is deliberate mischief played by the concerned respondents in rejecting the technical bid of all the participants except private respondent. In addition to that the private respondent suffers from a disqualification since one clause of the notice inviting tender categorically states that any party blacklisted by Corporation, FCI or the Government/Quasi Government organization shall not be qualified for the tender. The other clause is that those whose EMD has been forfeited on serious/grave ground in the past either by the Corporation or the FCI, shall not be qualified to participate. It is stand of the petitioner that in case of private respondent his EMD has been forfeited but still he has been found to be eligible. Another submission which has been made is that the private respondent is not a duly registered company or firm and there is no certificate of registration. But all these aspects have been ignored in awarding of contract in favour of the private respondent no.3. The allegations made by the petitioner have been denied by the respondents in the counter affidavit. They have stated that the reasons for rejection of technical bid of various candidates are for substantive reasons available on record which will be reflected from the comparative chart which was drawn up. So far the present petitioner is concerned it is their - 3 - stand that the petitioner did not provide any solvency certificate from the bank and he does not have maximum experience for a period of three years. From what has been annexed with the tender his work experience is only one and half years which makes him ineligible. It is for this reason that he has been disqualified. In so far as the allegation that private respondent’s EMD was forfeited by FCI. They have stated that clarification had been sought in this regard. A communication of the Area Manger of Food Corporation of India district Gaya addressed to the Chief Manager (Region) of Food Corporation of India, Patna dated 22nd February, 2010 is the complete answer. They have indicated that the forfeiture of EMD by the concerned authority is on misplaced ground. The matter is under consideration and that the EMD which has been forfeited by the district of Gaya was not on a serious or grave ground. Another aspect which has been pointed out by learned counsel representing the Corporation is that the tender in question was opened and comparative analysis was made on 16.1.2010. The so called forfeiture of EMD order was passed on 16.1.2010. How the petitioner has knowledge of such a thing when he filed the writ application and swore the affidavit on 4.1.2010 is not fully explained by the petitioner. Obviously there is something a miss because the petitioner had prior knowledge about a decision yet to be taken. A categorical statement has been made with regard - 4 - to forfeiture of EMD in paragraph-11 when the impugned order came to be passed only on 16th January, 2010. The Court is satisfied that the allegation made by the petitioner against the private respondent or the official respondents is more out of his frustration due to loss of tender rather than any substantive ground. There are reasons for rejection of the technical bid and there are good enough grounds to be sustained in Court. In so far as the selection of private respondent is concerned, the Court is not satisfied that the respondent suffered from any substantive disqualification which are in breach of the terms and conditions. In any case the Corporation would be well advised to verify the position of forfeiture of EMD of Private respondent before awarding the final contract in his favour as a matter of abundant caution. This writ application is misplaced and it is dismissed. RPS (Ajay Kumar Tripathi,J.)