- (1.) Prayer in this petition filed under Articles 226/227 of the Constitution of India is to quash award of tender to respondent No.4 which was published on 8.1.2012 and contract awarded to it vide Annexure P.10.
(2.) Briefly, the facts as narrated in the petition may be noticed. The petitioner is a joint venture between Sutron HydroMet Systems Private Limited (Sutron India), a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 and Sutron Corporation, USA. The petitioner is providing the state of art technology to India for over 10 years. During the last 10 years, Sutron India has designed and integrated over eight hundred real time HydroMet Monitoring Stations and seven digital earth receive stations for reception of remote site data through INSAT/KALPANA Satellites for the Indian Meteorological Department amongst other agencies. In December 2010, bids were invited by respondent No.1 - Bhakra Beas Management Board (BBMB) under Hydrology Project Phase II from eligible and qualified bidders for supply, installation, commissioning and integration of Hydro-Meteorological real time data acquisition system with real time decision support system of BBMB in India. The Bidding was to be conducted through International Competitive Bidding (ICB) procedures specified in the World Bank guidelines. The evaluation and qualification criteria to determine whether the bidder is qualified to perform the contract satisfactorily is set out in Section III of the Invitation for Bids (IFB) document. The last date for submission of the bids was 31.12.2010. The bids were opened on 28.1.2011. As per record of Bid opening provided to all bidders, it came to knowledge that respondent No.4 had purportedly quoted as a authorised representative of the manufacturer and not as a joint venture. The letter of request sent by the petitioner to respondent No.1 on 15.2.2011, Annexure P.4 stating that none of the bidders apart from it fulfilled the evaluation criteria as per tender document received no response. Thereafter, the petitioner sent a detailed representation to respondent No.1 on 22.11.2011, Annexure P.5 stating that respondent No.4 did not meet the post qualification requirement set out in section III of the ICB document. Reminder was also sent to respondent No.1 for taking decision on the representation. Personal hearing was also given to the petitioner on 8.12.2011 to consider the representation. After the hearing, a letter Annexure P.7 was received by the petitioner but no reasoned or speaking order was passed on the representation. On 11.1.2012, the petitioner was surprised to know that the tender had already been awarded to respondent No.4 on 8.1.2012 vide Annexure P.10. Hence this petition.
(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that respondent No.4 was technically not qualified and therefore, the financial bid which was opened on behalf of respondent No.4 was unjustified and as a consequence, the tender awarded to respondent No.4 was illegal and liable to be quashed. Learned counsel relying upon judgment of this Court in Raj Singh v. State of Haryana and others, 2006 142 PunLR 739submitted that once the person was not fully qualified, the award of contract and opening of financial bid was bad.;