Amitav K. Gupta, J. - (1.) The petitioner has prayed for issuance of appropriate writ for quashing/setting aside the decision of the Tender Committee dated 25.05.2017 as contained in Memo No.2929(S) WE, dated 29.05.2017, declaring the technical bid of the petitioner as non-responsive and for issuance of direction upon the respondent/State of Jharkhand to declare the technical bid of the petitioner as responsive, consequent thereto, to open the price bid of the petitioner and to award the work to him by issuance of letter of intent/work order if the financial bid of the petitioner is found to be the lowest. In the alternative the petitioner has prayed for issuance of an order/direction for quashing and setting aside the words " litigation history", inserted in Clause 4.8 of the Standard Bidding Document (in short SBD) to the extent that it confers unbridled power to reject a bid of a qualified bidder in an arbitrary manner.
(2.) The case of the petitioner is that it is a registered partnership firm engaged in the business of civil construction including the construction of road, etc. The respondent/ Road Construction Department, issued an Eprocurement notice dated 20.03.2017 inviting the bids for the work of "widening & strengthening of Bundu SonahatuJamudag-Jariya Road(MDR-026) from km 0.00 to 30.005 including construction of bridges for the year 2017-18". The E-procurement notice along with standard bidding document(for short 'SBD') was uploaded on the web-site of the State Government. The eligibility criteria was prescribed in Clause 4 of the said SBD. The petitioner was fulfilling the prescribed eligibility criteria. He was desirous for undertaking the work in question and participated in the tender process along with 10 other bidders, however, the technical bid of the petitioner was declared as nonresponsive, by the Tender Committee in the meeting held on 25.05.2017 vide Annexure-2.
(3.) Learned counsel for the petitioner has urged that the bid of the petitioner was found to be non-responsive in terms of Clause 4.8 of the SBD on the ground that the petitioner has "litigation history". It is contended that such declaration of the bid of the petitioner as non-responsive is actuated with bias and malice in law.;