- (1.) THE writ petitioner complains of the arbitrary conduct on the part of the respondent authorities in declining to accept the more favourable commercial terms offered by the writ petitioner and preferring the private respondent's bid. The writ petitioner claims that an irrational basis was adopted by the respondent authorities in choosing the eighth respondent's offer ahead of the petitioner's.
(2.) THE State respondents invited offers for installation of CT scan facilities at the Hooghly Imambara Sadar District Hospital on a joint venture basis. The tender documents provided that private parties who qualified on technical and cost grounds would be assessed on a quality and cost-based basis. By June 12, 2008 both the petitioner and the eighth respondent put in their revised papers expressing interest. Both commercial bids were divided into two columns, with rates set out for government hospital patients and private patients. There were no other offers received pursuant to the notice. The bids put in by the petitioner and by the eighth respondent were as follows: JUDGEMENT_31_TLCAL0_2009Html1.htm
(3.) THE petitioner says that subsequent to June 12, 2008, the petitioner was invited to lower the rates already offered and, accordingly, the petitioner revised the commercial terms relating to brain scan, cervical spinal scan and CT guided FNAC. The petitioner relies on a writing dated June 20, 2008 issued by him which records that a "verbal discussion" had taken placed between the petitioner and the Chief Medical Officer of Health, Hooghly district (CMOH), on June 19, 2008 following which the reduced rates in the three cases were being offered. The petitioner says that the negotiations with the CMOH were pursuant to a resolution of the Rogi Kalyan Samity of the district hospital and the ultimate rates offered by the petitioner were better than those quoted by the eighth respondent. The petitioner questions the rationale of the executive committee the body that was authorised to select the appropriate party in setting an irrational benchmark for weighing the rival bids. The petitioner says that there is nothing to disclose how the selection committee arrived at the opinion that the rates that the eighth respondent had offered were better in respect of the more commonly prescribed diagnostic measures.;