The Bombay High Court imposed a Cost of Rs 10,000 (Rupees Ten Thousand) on the petitioner and dismissed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) filed to quash the resolution passed by the respondent corporation, whereby the decision was taken to construct a hospital along with upgraded/ modern facilities for the poor and downtrodden in Ahmednagar.
The other prayers made by the petitioner is that the approval granted by the Collector for construction of the said new hospital may also be quashed. A further prayer made in the petition is to set aside the resolution dated 10/6/2022 said to have been passed by the respondent Corporation thereby resolving to grant 4% increase in the estimated cost, to be paid to the contractor.
The Court passed an order on 23/2/2024 specifically denying entertaining the petition in respect of the prayers made for quashing the sanction etc. granted for construction of the hospital. The petition was entertained by the said order only in respect of the issue relating to the alleged hike of 4% to the estimated cost to be paid to the contractor for completion of the project.
After the said order was passed, Civil Application has been moved seeking amendments in the petition . These averments have been sought to be inserted in the petition along with certain ground.
By a separate order passed , the Court have already rejected the said Civil Application. Thus, the only challenge made in the Petition to be considered now by the Court is in respect of the prayer made by the petitioner for quashing the decision for granting 4% hike to the estimated cost, to be paid to the contractor on completion of the work.
A detailed affidavit-in-reply has been filed by the respondent Corporation wherein it has clearly been stated that in the bid process two tenderers were technically qualified and on opening of the financial bid, the financial bid of one was found to be 15% higher than the estimated cost of the project which as per the tender document is Rs.23,84,34,238/-.
As compared to the rate quoted by Spectrum Infrastructures the other qualified bidder respondent No.7 quoted the financial bid which was only 9.99% over and above the estimated cost and accordingly, as submitted by the counsel representing the respondent Corporation, the respondent No.7 was invited for negotiations.
In the negotiations held with respondent No.7, the said bidder agreed to carry out the entire work only at a hike of 4% to the estimated cost. Thus, the amount to be paid to the contractor in terms of the subject bid was brought down by 5% in comparison to what was quoted by the respondent No.7.
The counsel for the petitioner has, however, submitted that the said hike of 4% was over and above the rate quoted by the respondent No.7 which fact is absolutely incorrect and is not borne out of the record. The counsel representing the petitioner has utterly failed to establish that 4% hike was to the rate quoted by the respondent No.7, to the contrary as is revealed from the record available on the Petition, 4% hike was granted to the respondent No.7 over and above the estimated cost and accordingly, in fact the rate quoted by the respondent No.7 was reduced by 5%.
In the aforesaid view of the matter, there is nothing on record to establish the submissions made by the counsel for the petitioner.
The Division Bench of Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Kishore C Sant found that the petitioner has described the resolution dated 14/6/2023 as 4% increase in the estimated cost and not 4% increase in the rate quoted by respondent No.7. Thus, the submissions made by the counsel for the petitioner runs contrary to the averments in the Petition itself.
“For the reasons aforesaid, we are not inclined to entertain the Writ Petition. It is dismissed with costs of Rs.10,000/- (Rupees Ten Thousand) which shall be paid by the petitioner with Government Cancer Hospital, Aurangabad. He will file a receipt thereof in the registry of this Court within a period of eight weeks from today. If the petitioner fails to tender the receipt of deposit under this order, the Registrar (Judicial) of this Court shall proceed to recover the costs as arrears of land revenue through the Collector/ District Magistrate concerned,” the order reads.