Court No. - 40
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 16091 of 2021 Petitioner :- M/S Arun Kumar Sharma Respondent :- Union Of India And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Mahabir Yadav,Ram Awtar Counsel for Respondent :- Vivek Kumar Rai,Mukteshwar Upadhyay
Hon'ble Manoj Misra,J. Hon'ble Jayant Banerji,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner; Sri Vivek Kumar Rai for the respondents 1 to 3; and perused the record.
According to the petitioner, the petitioner submitted on line bid for work contract the closing date of which was 12th November, 2020. The bid was valid up to 45 days. As there was no acceptance within that period, the petitioner communicated to the authority that he was willing to extend the validity of the tender at 5% extra cost otherwise not.
The grievance of the petitioner is that after the validity period of the offer was over, the railway authorities without revising the cost upwards accepted the offer which is against the law of contract.
The prayer in this petition is to command the respondents to extend the time to finalize the aforesaid tender by two months and to increase the estimated cost by 5%.
If the validity period of the offer of the petitioner had expired, the petitioner can make a claim that acceptance of the offer after expiry of the validity period would not result in a binding contract. But, the writ court cannot be used as a tool to ensure finalization of contract at a particular rate though, once a contract is finalized the writ court may, in appropriate cases, exercise its power of judicial review to ensure that the State or its instrumentalities do not act in a arbitrary manner. The writ petition is therefore liable to be dismissed and is accordingly dismissed without prejudice to the right of the petitioner to take recourse to other alternative remedies as may be advised.
Order Date :- 13.8.2021. Rks.