Bijitendra Mohan Mitra, J. - (1.) In this writ petition a prayer is made at the instance of the petitioners of which petitioner No. 1 is a Private Limited Company incorporated under the Companies Act by the name of The Daily Tej Pvt. Ltd. which has prayed for a Writ of mandamus to cancel and/or to rescind the award of the said contract being given in favour of respondent No. 6 namely Saraswati Press Ltd., a Company incorporated under the Companies Act. It has been averred in the original writ petition that by a tender Notice No. DCP/2006 dated 14.2.97 the respondent No. 3 invites bids for the printing and supplying of Calcutta Telephone Directory in english for the year 1997. Reference maybe made to the stipulations contained in the said tender notice from which it appears that sealed tenders are invited by the Chief General Manager, Calcutta Telephones on behalf of the President of India from competent agencies for compilation of data, printing, binding and supply of specified number of Telephone Directories in english for one Annual issue. In the second paragraph of the prefix of the said tender notice, it has been mentioned that the directory shall conform to the technical specification given in the tender document, The tenderers should have experience in printing and supply of Telephone Directories to the large telephone system with capacity of more than one lac lines or publication of similar nature. The tenderers will be required to substantiate the same with documentary proofs and also furnish credentials in the field. Subject to the fulfilment of the said pre-requisite condition, a tender form is appended as an appendix to Annexure 'A'and also in the concluding portion of paragraph 1, it has been stipulated thill preference will be given to the parties having offices located in Calcutta. It has been also, inter alia, mentioned therein that the selected tenderers shall deposit/furnish for a sum of Rs. One Crore or 10% of the cost of the work quoted in the tender, whichever is lower, either in cash or in the form of bank guarantee within 10 days from the date of acceptance of the tender as security for the due-performance of the contract. In Annexure 'A' appended to the tender form and in Clause-5 thereof was stipulated that the contractor should not assign or sublet the conte or any part thereof to any other party without obtaining the prior permission, in writing from the C. G. M. or any other Officer authorised by the said officer of Calcutta Telephones. In Annexure'B' appends thereto it has been insisted upon that in terms of Clause-6 quality of paper will be 48 gsm, cover with thick cartoon box or glazed on one side. In terms of Clause-4, number of copies has been insisted as 6,50,000 copies and in terms of Clause-5 thereof, it was provided approximately 1800 pap bound in two volumes. In terms of Clause-14 of Annexure 'B' enclosed to the same, minimum lines to be printed per column shall be 125 lines printing shall be in 4 column format. The records of the connect proceeding of the tender have been made available before this Court which inspection was taken by all the parties.
(2.) This Court has also the occasion to deal with the concerned file and it has also gone through the same in order to appreciate and assess the records vis-a-vis the claims and contentions of the respective parties. It appears from the quotations given by the petitioner, that the petitioner has quoted the rates and with a rider that the said rates are applicable for 1800 pages or less. Any additional pages over and above 1800 pages would be charged at pro-rata.
(3.) It has been stated before this Court that at the time of the order of tender being placed in favour of the concerned respondent, namely, respondent No. 6, the total number of pages has been reduced from 1800 to 1362.;