IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE, ANDHRA PRADESH AT HYDERABAD (Special Original Jurisdiction) MONDAY, THE TWENTIETH DAY OF OCTOBER TWO THOUSAND AND EIGHT PRESENT THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA WRIT PETITION NO : 2608 of 2008 Between: 1 M/s. Real Constructions, Special Civil Contractor Class-I, H.No. 2-7-204 Mukarampura, Karimnagar, Rep. by its Managing Partner Md. Karimullah S/o. Md. Raﬁuddin Aged 45 Years, R/o. Mukarampura, Karimnagar, Karimnagar District. 2 Md. Karimullah, S/o. Md. Rafiuddin, R/o. Mukarampuram, Karimnagar, Karimnagar District. ..... PETITIONERS AND 1 Government of Andhra pradesh, Commissioner of Tender Rep. by its Commissioner, 6th Floor BRKR Bhavan, Hyderabad. 2 Engineer-In-Chief (R&B), Administration & national Highway Erramanzil, Hyderabad. 3 Superintending Engineer (R&B), Karimnagar Circle, Karimnagar. 4 G. Venkataramana Rao, S/o. G. Achuta Rao, R/o. 7-1-118, Vidyanagar, Jagityal, Karimnagar District. .....RESPONDENTS Petition under Article 226 of the constitution of India praying that in the circumstances stated in the Aﬃdavit ﬁled herein the High Court will be pleased to issue a Writ, order or direction, one more particularly in the nature of a "Writ of Mandamus" declaring the action of the respondents 1 to 3 in disqualifying the petitioner in the technical bid in relation to the work notiﬁed by the respondents 2 & 3 in notiﬁcation No. e-CTN No. 10/E.In.C (R&B) Admsn & NH/EE(TEC) /TA16/ AEE(CRF)/07-08 dated 19-11-2007 pertaining to improvement of widening and strengthening of PWD road from Dongalamari and Mallial via Kondagattu Road from KM 1/8 to 8/8 in Karimnagar District on ground of the non production of appropriate solvency certiﬁcate as being illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional and consequently direct the respondents to open the price bid of the 1st petitioner and award the work in favour of the 1st petitioner and pass Counsel for the Petitioner: MR.S.NIRANJAN REDDY Counsel for the Respondent No.: GP FOR ROADS & BUILDINGS The Court made the following : THE HON'BLE MR JUSTICE N.V. RAMANA WRIT PETITION NO. 2608 of 2008 ORDER: 1 Questioning the action of the respondents in disqualifying the petitioner in the technical bid in relation to the work notiﬁed in notiﬁcation No.e-CTN No.10/E.In.C(R&B)/Admn & NH/EE/(TEC)/TA 16/AEE (CRF)/07-08 dated 19.11.2007 pertaining to improvement of widening and strengthening of P.W.D road from Dongalamarri and Mallial via Kondagattu road from KM 1/8 to 8/8 in Karimnagar District on ground of the non production of appropriate solvency certificate, this Writ Petition is filed. 2 It is the case of the petitioner that he is the Class I contractor. The respondents invited tenders on e-Procurement Platform notifying the starting date for down loading the document as 24.11.2007 and last date for submission of tender as 10.12.2007 and that the main eligibility criteria of the contract is that the persons intending to participate in the bid must provide a solvency certiﬁcate from any scheduled bank for a value of Rs.61,24,867/-. That the petitioner participated in the bid and furnished all the relevant original documents including a solvency certiﬁcate dated 12.04.2006 issued by the Punjab National Bank to an extent of Rs1.00 crore. It is further stated that the third respondent opened the bid on 13.12.2007 and while assessing the technical bids he raised a doubt on the solvency certiﬁcate produced by the petitioner as it was originally dated 12.04.2006 and addressed the second respondent on that aspect. The second respondent in turn sought clariﬁcation from the ﬁrst respondent by his letter dated 27.12.2007. It is further stated that on coming to know about the same, the petitioner addressed the ﬁrst respondent vide letter dated 03.01.2008 bringing all the facts pertaining to the validity of the solvency certiﬁcate and he also independently submitted another solvency certiﬁcate dated 15.12.2007 obtained from the same bank along with a further clariﬁcation from the bank that the solvency certiﬁcate dated 12.04.2006 was duly renewed on 17.04.2007. Now the grievance of the petitioner is that the action of the respondents, without considering the facts produced by him, in rejecting the solvency certiﬁcate produced by him in the technical bid in relation to the work notiﬁed is contrary to the terms and conditions of the contract. 3 This Court on 12.02.2008 admitted the Writ Petition and granted stay of all further proceedings. Thereafter the respondents ﬁled a detailed counter contending that when the third respondent compared the uploaded document with the original document submitted by the petitioner some irregularities and discrepancies were found, which are as follows: (i) The experience certiﬁcates submitted by the petitioner herein for the year 2002-03 to 2006-07 in regard to work executed by him for earth work excavation for various years, the certiﬁcate uploaded by the bidder is veriﬁed with the originals and it has been seen that the uploaded certiﬁcate did not carry any date of the Superintending Engineer (R&B) Karimnagar District, but in the original submitted by the Writ Petitioner, it contains the signature dated 02.09.2006 and there is discrepancy in the uploaded certiﬁcate produced by the Writ Petitioner herein. It is also pertinent to submit that this oﬃce has further veriﬁed the original certificate issued by this office wherein the original certiﬁcate signed by this oﬃce contains as follows:- “Counter signed on strength of certiﬁcation of EE (R &B Division) Karimnagar” The said endorsement does not contain on the uploaded document and the same is in the original document, by virtue of which this authority has no go, except to disqualify the technical bid of the petitioner on the ground that the original document does not tally with the uploaded document which is quite contrary to the terms and conditions of the bid document. (ii) The technical bid is also rejected on the ground that availability of key and critical equipment as per the bid notiﬁcation the petitioner does not satisfy in regard to the critical equipment as the tenderer should possess 8 tippers as per the bid document and whereas the petitioner is in possession of 6 tippers and there is shortfall of 2 tippers. (iii) The technical bid is further rejected on the ground that there is discrepancy in uploaded and original certiﬁcate pertaining to solvency certiﬁcate issued by the Manager, Punjab National Bank dated 12.04.2006 as there is discrepancy in regard to the issuance of certiﬁcate and the uploaded certiﬁcate but the original certiﬁcate produced before this oﬃce contains a word ‘revalidated’. 5 In reply to the counter ﬁled by the respondents petitioner ﬁled a reply aﬃdavit contending that as the petitioner was running out of time for participating in the tender process, the experience certiﬁcates were signed by the third respondent on site as such due to oversight in hurry, the words “Counter signed on strength of certiﬁcate of EE (R&B Division) Karimnagar” could not ﬁnd place and that the experience certiﬁcates that were uploaded could always be veriﬁed with the oﬃce of the third respondent in case of any doubt about the authenticity of the said certiﬁcates, but on that ground they cannot reject the tender document submitted by the petitioner. 6 It is further stated in the reply aﬃdavit that so far as the discrepancy with regard to the tippers, the contention of the respondents that the petitioner is having only six tippers is denied and the petitioner contended that it is having 12 tippers which are suﬃcient for execution of the work and that he submitted two documents in proof of the same and the respondents while accepting one document which shows that the petitioner is having six tippers, have failed to consider the other document which shows that the petitioner is owning more tippers. 7 With regard to the other discrepancy pertaining to solvency certiﬁcate, the contention of the petitioner is that originally the solvency certiﬁcate was obtained on 12.04.2006 and it was duly extended by the same bank on 17.04.2007 and so it has to be treated as valid for one year period and on coming to know about the clariﬁcation sought by the ﬁrst respondent the petitioner once again independently submitted another solvency certiﬁcate dated 15.12.2007 along with clariﬁcation letter from the bank that the solvency certiﬁcate dated 12.04.2006 was duly renewed on 17.04.2007 and ﬁnally prayed that in view of the circumstances the petitioner is entitled for consideration of the opening of the technical bid. 8 Heard the counsel on both sides. Perused the documents. 9 It is an admitted fact that the last date for submitting the tender document is 10.12.2007 and by that date the petitioner is having the solvency certiﬁcate dated 12.04.2006, which is not obtained during the relevant period and it expires by 12.04.2007 and it is also an admitted fact that the said solvency certiﬁcate was not renewed by the last date of submitting the tender document i.e. 10.12.2007 and the same was renewed subsequent to the ﬁling of the document i.e. on 17.04.2007. There is no separate certiﬁcate issued by the bank evidencing the solvency of the petitioner except a signature made by the Branch Manager on the same certiﬁcate issued on 12.04.2006. By simply signing and putting a date as 17.04.2007 subsequently on the certiﬁcate initially issued on 12.04.2006 cannot, by any stretch of imagination, be said that the validity of the certiﬁcate dated 12.04.2006 is extended for another year. So the contention of the counsel for the petitioner that the petitioner had submitted a valid certiﬁcate on the date of ﬁling of the tender document cannot be accepted. 10 So far as the other reasons mentioned in the counter aﬃdavit, and the Xerox copies of the record, which were produced, indicate that the petitioner submitted the experience certiﬁcate dated 02.09.2006 purported to be signed by the third respondent and the original certificate contains “Counter signed on strength of certiﬁcation of E.E (R&B Division) Karimnagar”. But the same was missing in the scanned copy which was uploaded by the petitioner, which itself clearly indicates that the petitioner has not submitted the genuine certiﬁcate as given by the Executive Engineer. So by deleting such an endorsement, the petitioner tried to give an impression that it is the actual experience certiﬁcate without any conditions and in that view of the matter the attempt of the petitioner in giving the reason that the words “Counter signed on strength of certiﬁcate of EE (R&B Division) Karimnagar” could not ﬁnd place in the scanned document in a hurry cannot be accepted. 11 The petitioner seems to have ﬁled the tender document without valid and genuine documents, which were rightly rejected by the respondents in opening the technical bid. Hence I ﬁnd no reason to entertain this Writ Petition and accordingly the same is dismissed. No costs. ------------------------ N.V.RAMANA, J. 20.10.2008 Kvsn