Court No. - 39
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 9942 of 2020 Petitioner :- M/S S.S. Contractors And Another Respondent :- State Of U.P.And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Siddharth Khare,Sr. Advocate(Ashok Khare) Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Kaushalendra Nath Singh
Hon'ble Mrs. Sunita Agarwal,J. Hon'ble Mrs. Sadhna Rani (Thakur),J.
Heard Sri Ashok Khare, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Siddharth Khare learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Kaushalendra Nath Singh learned counsel for the respondent- Development Authority.
The challenge is to the order dated 20.04.2020 passed by the Director (Horticulture) NOIDA Gautam Budh Nagar whereby the contract of providing manpower granted to the petitioner has been cancelled and the petitioner has been blacklisted for a period of two years.
Placing page no.'32' of the paper book, the order impugned, the learned Senior counsel for the petitioner submits that the entire inquiry against the petitioner was conducted ex parte. The specific averments in this regard has been made in para nos.'18', '19', '20' & 21 of the writ petition. The reply to the said averments have been given in para '21' and '22' of the counter affidavit.
However, the pleadings of the parties indicate that to the specific assertion of the petitioner of not providing opportunity of hearing, a vague reply has been given in the counter affidavit. There is no specific denial to the averments in the writ petition which amounts to the admission of the respondents that no opportunity of hearing had been granted to the petitioner during the course of inquiry or thereafter.
The Apex Court in Gorkha Security Services v. Govt. (NCT of Delhi) & ors. reported in 2014 (9) SCC 105 has held that the notice indicating the statement of imputations detailing out the alleged breaches and defaults to give an opportunity to rebut the same, is necessarily required to be given before passing the order of blacklisting.
In the said scenario, the order impugned cannot be sustained. The same is hereby quashed.
The writ petition is allowed.
As regards the continuance of the petitioner pursuant to this order, Sri Kaushalendra Nath Singh submits that the contract of the petitioner had been cancelled about one year ago. The engagement of new contractor for supply of the manpower, if any, is not known to him.
The competent authority is, therefore, directed to take a decision in the matter of continuance of the petitioner as a contractor by passing a reasoned and speaking order, in accordance with law, preferably within a period of three weeks from the date of receipt of the copy of this order.
Order Date :- 27.7.2021 P Kesari Digitally signed by Justice Sunita Agarwal Date: 2021.08.04 16:32:44 IST Reason: Document Owner Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad Digitally signed by Sadhna Rani Thakur Date: 2021.08.04 16:34:05 IST Reason: Document Owner Location: High Court of Judicature at Allahabad