Patna High Court: A Division Bench comprising of Amreshwar Pratap Sahi and Anjana Mishra, JJ. rejected a letters patent appeal arising from an order in a writ petition wherein a tender process was held to be vitiated.
Respondent herein had filed a writ petition challenging tender for placement of security guards at Sadar Hospital on the ground that he was not intimated about the opening of the technical or financial bid which was an essential condition of tender as a result whereof prejudice had been caused to him. The said petition was allowed by the learned Single Judge, and aggrieved thereby the instant appeal was filed by the winner of the bid.
The Court noted that, in the writ petition, the appellant had filed a document containing recording of minutes of the technical bid which did not bear the signature of the second member, namely District Sales Tax Officer. Whereas the technical bid opening document filed by the respondent 2 State along with its counter affidavit was signed by District Sales Tax Officer and had an interpolated date thereon.
The State submitted that the document filed with counter affidavit was the correct document, and appellant’s counsel Mr Arup Kumar Chongdar had no explanation as to how and from did he receive the document filed by him.
In view of the above, it was opined that the recording of technical bid was doubtful and manipulation in the opening of technical bid was evident. In relation to the financial bid, there was no evidence of service of notice on the respondent. Thus, the Court discredited the entire procedure relating to opening of technical bid and participation of respondent in technical bid or financial bid. [Spider Protection Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Imperishable Security Services Pvt. Ltd., 2018 SCC OnLine Pat 2264, decided on 20-12-2018]
