- (1.) This writ petition under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India has been filed by the petitioner against the respondents on 10-3-2004 with the prayer that by appropriate writ, order or direction, the record in relation to award of contract for transportation of food grains granted in favour of the respondent No. 2 Om Prakash Joshi be called for and after calling the record, the grant of tender in favour of the respondent No. 2 be quashed and set aside and the tender submitted by the respondent No. 2 be ordered to be rejected and the respondent No. 1 Rajasthan Tribal Areas Development Co-operative Federation Ltd. (for short "the Federation") be directed to accept the tender of the petitioner and issue the work order in his favour.
(2.) The case of the petitioner as put forward by him in this writ petition is as follows : The respondent No. 1 Federation through tender notice dated 9-2-2004, which was amended and revised through tender notice dated 16-2-2004 (Annex. R/1) invited tenders for the purpose of transportation of food grains for the period 2004-05. A copy of the tender document issued by the respondent No. 1 Federation is marked as Annex. 1. According to the petitioner, conditions were appended with the said tender document Annex. 1 and as per condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1, tenderer should have atleast one year experience of transportation of controlled food grains under door step delivery in the State of Rajasthan. The further case of the petitioner is that he also filed his tender with the respondent No. 1 Federation and as per the terms and conditions of the tender document Annex. 1, the tenders were to be opened on 25-2- 2004 and they were opened on that day. According to the petitioner, his tender was lowest as he had proposed to carry out the transportation work at 21% below the rates indicated by the respondent No. 1 Federation. However, according to the petitioner, there was another bidder respondent No. 2 Om Prakash Joshi, who had proposed to carry out the transportation work at 22% below the rates indicated by the respondent No. 1 Federation. But, on the date when the tenders were opened i.e. on 25-2-2004, the respondent No. 2 failed to enclose mandatory certificate of one year experience of transportation of controlled food-grains under door step delivery in the State of Rajasthan, as required by condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1 and therefore, in absence of requisite experience certificate, the tender form of the respondent No. 2 should have been rejected by the respondent No 1 Federation, but in disregard of the condition No. 3 of the tender document Annx. 1. the respondent No. 1 Federation granted time to the respondent No. 2 to submit the requisite experience certificate upto 3-3- 2004 and thereafter, vide order dated 5-3- 2004, the respondent No. 1 Federation had issued a letter in favour of the respondent No. 2 despite the fact that he had not fulfilled the condition No. 3 on the relevant date when the tenders were opened on 25-2- 2004. Hence, this writ petition with the prayers as stated above. In this writ petition, the main contention of the petitioner is that terms and conditions were appended to the tender document Annexure 1 and as per condition No. 3 of the tender document Annexure 1, the tenderer should have atleast one year experience of transportation of controlled food grains under door step delivery in the State of Rajasthan, but on the date when the tenders were opened on 25-2-2004, the respondent No. 2 failed to attach that experience certificate, as required by condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1 and in absence of that, his tender should have been rejected, but the respondent No. 1 Federation in clear disregard of the condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1 permitted the respondent No. 2 to submit the experience certificate upto 3-3-2004. According to the petitioner, the action of the respondent No. 1 Federation in asking the respondent No.2 to submit the requisite experience certificate as per condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1 after opening of the tenders on 25-2-2004 and thereafter, awarding contract in favour of the respondent No. 2 is ex facie illegal and against the settled practice of awarding Government contracts and thus, liable to be quashed and set aside, A reply to the writ petition was filed by the respondent No. 1 Federation and the respondent No. 2 Om Prakash Joshi separately and on condition No. 3 of the tender document Annex. 1, it was submitted by them that though experience certificate on the date when the tenders were opened on 25-2-2004 was not submitted by the respondent No. 2, but on his request a chance was given by the respondent No. 1 Federation to the respondent No. 2 to submit the requisite experience certificate as per condition No. 3 of the tender notice Annex. 1 upto 3- 3-2004 and thereafter, on furnishing the requisite experience certificate within the stipulated time, respondent No. 1 Federation through order Annex. R-2/2 dated 24-3- 2004, issued work order in favour of the respondent No. 2, The action of the respondent No. 1 Federation in granting time to the respondent No. 2 to submit the requisite certificate upto 3-3-2004 and thereafter, on his submitting requisite certificate within the stipulated time, issuing contract through order Annex. R-2/2 dated 24-3- 2004 in favour of the respondent No. 2 was within the frame work of the law and no illegality or irregularity has been committed by the respondent No. 1 Federation in doing so. Apart from this, it was further submitted that it was the discretion of the respondent No. 1 Federation to be satisfied regarding the credentials of the person, who was going to be awarded the contract and the same cannot be challenged by the petitioner under Art. 226 of the Constitution of India. Hence, no case for interference is made out and this writ petition deserves to be dismissed.
(3.) I have heard the learned counsel for the petitioner and the learned counsel for the respondents and gone through the materials available on record.;