- (1.) In this writ petition, the petitioner has prayed for setting aside the decision of the respondents of accepting the technical bid of the respondent No. 6 as valid and declaring it as L-1. The petitioner has also prayed for restraining the respondents from allotting the work in question to the respondent No. 6 and also to hold the petitioner technically qualified and direct the respondents to allot the work in question to the petitioner.
(2.) The petitioner has challenged the decision of the respondents mainly on the ground of violation of the terms of the bid published by the National Highway Project, Government of Jharkhand being Bid No. 02/2010-11 dated 16.12.2010 for widening two lane and improvement in KM 25.6 to 79.147 of NH 98 (Patna, Aurangabad - Chhattarpur - Parwa More Road) in the State of Jharkhand under LWE scheme for a value of Rs. 5233.80 Lacs (Annexure - 1).
(3.) The petitioner contended that the said tender was to be decided in two parts, technical bid and then financial bid. According to the terms of the NIT, in order to qualify for financial bid / price part, the tenderer had to qualify in technical bid. Altogether eleven tenderers participated in the said tender by submitting their offers on 27.1.2011. All technical bids were opened on 14.2.2011. In support of the prescribed minimum qualification / experience, the respondent No. 6 had submitted the certificate dated 10.12.2008 issued by the National Highways Authority of India. The certificate mentioned that the work in question was allotted to the respondent No. 6 under Agreement No. NHAI/PIU/PLN/2005/PCK-VI/Contractor/D-806. The certificate mentioned the value of the work, the date of completion etc. in detail. The certificate was accepted in considering the technical bid of the respondent No. 6. However, the same was not a genuine certificate, as the said work was not awarded to the respondent No. 6, rather the said work was awarded under the aforesaid agreement to one Daelin Industrial Corporation Ltd. - Nagarjuna Construction Co. Ltd. (JV). Some contractors including the petitioner questioned the genuineness of the experience certificate of the respondent No. 6 and also of the other bidders and requested the Chief Engineer to verify the same. But before receiving the verification report of the experience certificates submitted by the tenderers, the Evaluation Committee started evaluation of the legal bids of the tenderers. That was also noted by the respondent No. 4. He informed the Chief Engineer by letter dated 21.5.2011 (Annexure - 5) that the verification report of experience certificates has not been received. In spite of the same, the Evaluation Committee comprising of five members again took up the technical bids of all the eleven bidders for technical evaluation and declared nine bidders including the respondent No. 6 as qualified. The respondent No. 6 was also declared technically qualified despite the said objection and doubt raised by the petitioner and others regarding the genuineness of its experience certificate. The respondent No. 5 by his letter dated 10.6.2011 informed the minutes of the meeting of the Evaluation Committee dated 10.6.2011 to the Chief Engineercum- Chairman, Evaluation Committee again requesting him for verification of the experience certificate of the remaining three bidders including the petitioner (Annexures - 6 & 6/1). However, without paying heed upon the said objection, the respondents opened the price bids before receiving the verification report of experience certificate of the respondent No. 6 and by the decision of the Evaluation Committee dated 24.6.2011 (Annexure - 7/1) arbitrarily and illegally not only declared the respondent No. 6 as L-1, but allowed the respondent No. 6 also to unlawfully modify the price quoted in the bid ignoring the provisions of Clause 22 of the Standard Bidding Document. In the original bid, the respondent No. 6 had quoted its price as Rs. 56,48,95,196.9/-, but a modified price bid of Rs. 54,79,48,340.99/- was shown quoted by the respondent No. 6 and the said price bid was accepted as the price bid of the respondent No. 6. Such modification / alteration is not permissible as per Clause 22 of the Standard Bidding Document. The petitioner, who was technically qualified and had quoted the lowest price for the work in question, was arbitrary discarded. Accepting the said technical bid and the price bid of the respondent No. 6 is wholly arbitrary, contrary to the terms of the Standard Bidding Document and is violative of Article 14 of the Constitution of India and the decision of the respondents in allotting the work based thereon, is not legally sustainable and is liable to be quashed.;