Court No. - 1
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 26819 of 2019 Petitioner :- Paras Nath Singh Respondent :- Managing Director Uttar Pradesh Matsya Nigam Ltd. And 7 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Rajiv Kumar Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Ajit Singh,Sushil Kumar Srivastava
Hon'ble Ramesh Sinha,J. Hon'ble Ajit Kumar,J.
1. Heard Sri Rajiv Kumar Singh, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Ajit Singh, learned counsel appearing for respondent Nos.1, 2, 3 and 6, Sri Sushil Kumar Srivastava, learned counsel for respondent No.8 and perused the records.
2. By means of this petition invoking extraordinary jurisdiction under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has virtually invited us to embark upon an enquiry into the affairs of the respondents in conducting tender bid proceedings with an alleged element of bias for the respondent No.8 and, therefore, to hold the entire proceedings resulting in ultimate allotment of the pond in question and recommendation in favour of the respondent No.8 to be vitiated in law and quash the same.
3. The basic argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner is that there were three dates mentioned in the notice inviting tender and were to follow one after and another, in case if the requirements are not met and conditions are not fulfilled to open the technical bid and the respondent No.8, according to him had submitted his online papers on 25.06.2019, the date on which the respondent No.8 was not in possession of any solvency certificate, a document must to maintain a tender application. He submits that it is in the third round, i.e., 16.07.2019 that tenders were finally invited and the petitioner had applied in pursuance thereof on 16.07.2019, the respondent No.8 did not file any fresh application and therefore, if an application of the respondent No.8 filed on 25.06.2019 was considered, it was without insolvency certificate, a document mandatorily required and, therefore, his application was liable to be rejected.
4. Yet another argument has been advanced that the insolvency certificate, which was obtained by the respondent No.8, quite later though before the last date 16.07.2019, did bear a PAN number which did not match with that of any of the partners of the firm and, therefore, it was a forged document.
5. Confronted with the above arguments advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner coupled with the argument of element of bias in favour of the respondent No.8 in granting the allotment, Sri Ajit Singh, learned Advocate appearing on behalf of respondent-Authorities has placed instructions before the Court, which are taken on record. From the perusal of instructions, we find that all the five applicants had made applications/submitted their tenders on 16.07.2019 including the respondent No.8 and as per the status shown in the document, both the technical and financial bid were opened on 17.07.2019 and in which the respondent No.8's bid being the highest one, his tender was accepted.
6. It is argued on behalf of respondent-Authorities that the old application of the petitioner dated 25.06.2019 was only considered and that the respondent No.8 did not have the insolvency certificate, does not hold any merit. The solvency certificate which was filed by the respondent is dated 29.06.2019, a date much prior to 16.07.2019, last date to submit tender.
7. Regarding the argument advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner of difference in the PAN number on insolvency certificate, learned counsel for the respondent No.8 has vehemently argued before this Court that the relevant documents have deliberately been not brought on record so as to make out an impression of bias at the end of the authorities.
He has placed before this Court photocopy of the PAN number which is there on the insolvency certificate. He submits that it is a partnership that had applied and it is therefore, the PAN number of the partnership firm which was necessary and solvency certificate was also required to be furnished in the name of the partnership firm.
8. Having heard learned counsel for the parties and having considered the arguments raised across the Bar and having perused the record, we are convinced that the tender proceedings for allotment of the pond in question had been held validly and evaluating the arguments advanced by learned counsel for the petitioner in the light of the documents produced by the contesting respondent No.8 and the counsel for respondent-authorities, we do not see any element of bias or any irregularity much less an illegality in entire tender and allotment process that may warrant interference in exercise of power under Article 226 of the Constitution of India and hence, we decline to interfere in the matter.
9. Writ petition lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed.
Order Date :- 22.8.2019 Nitin Verma (Ajit Kumar, J.) (Ramesh Sinha, J.)