The Uttarakhand High Court at Nainital while hearing a plea challenging the tender bid by Uttarakhand Rural Roads Development Agency on Tuesday had directed status quoin the said matter and restrained URRDA from further work.
Writ Petition was filed before the bench of Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia, High Court of Uttarakhand by the petitioner which is a registered partnership firm M/S. M.M. Construction (Engineers and Contractor), the firm is engaged in the work of road construction, whereas the respondents were the State of Uttarakhand, Uttarakhand Rural Roads Development Agency through Chief Engineer and M/S. Doon Associate which is a private firm.
In response to the advertisement, which was for construction of a motor road, the petitioner made his bid, as per the procedure. The employer i.e. Uttarakhand Rural Roads Development Agency (URRDA) had received in total six bids. As it was two bid process, out of six participants, five including the petitioner, were made technically qualified but the financial bid was never opened. In fact, the employer issued another advertisement for the same work, inviting fresh bids, thereby ipso facto, cancelling the first bid process.
In the second bid process, there were more participants including the present petitioner, however, only one participant i.e. third respondent-private firm was made technically qualified. The rest, including the petitioner were technically disqualified. In pursuant to the provisions contained in the Bid Tender conditions, the petitioner moved objections. These objections though were rejected, and it was only uploaded on the website of the employer-respondent.
Learned counsel for URRDA informed the High Court that the contract has yet not been executed in favour of third respondent-private firm i.e M/S Doon Associate.
“From the perusal of the order dated 05.03.2020 (Annexure No. 09), it is prima facie clear that the Tender Technical Committee has not disclosed valid reasons for rejecting the objections raised by the petitioner. Similarly, the objections of the present petitioner regarding qualification of respondent no. 3 have also been rejected without assigning reasons. Prima facie, this appears to be unfair.” Said by the High Court.
Therefore, the High court of Uttarakhand directed that the status quo be maintained in the matter till the next date of listing. The respondent URRDA is hereby restrained from going any further in the matter. The next date of hearing is 11th May, 2020.
-India Legal Bureau