Arjik Carrier Pvt. Ltd. Through Its Director vs Chairman And Managing Director And Ors

Heard Mr. Alok Ranjan, learned Advocate for the petitioner and Mr. Siddhartha Prasad, learned Advocate for the respondent/Bharat Petroleum

Corporation Ltd.

The petitioner is aggrieved by the decision of Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (in short the BPCL) in awarding contract for additional lorries to

petroleum product dealers and not to the existing transporters.

Learned Advocate for the petitioner has shown to this Court the tender floated by the BPCL on 26.03.2019. From a perusal of the expression of

interest referred to above, it would become very clear that it invited applications from existing transporters of the BPCL for placing tank lorry required

for road transportion of bulk petroleum products on ad-hoc basis from Barauni to BPCL Retail Outlets and I & C - Jharkhand Customers.

The claim of the petitioner is that LOI in a tender floated in the year 2017 by the BPCL was allotted in favour the petitioner, but for the rigid stand

of the petroleum company/BPCL, the petitioner could not place his lorries. Because of this, the petitioner was not treated as an existing transporter

and, therefore, he was prevented from participating in the aforesaid limited tender floated on 26.03.2019.

As opposed to the aforesaid contention, Mr. Siddhartha Prasad, learned Advocate for the respondent/BPCL has submitted that no doubt the

petitioner was allotted the LOI in the tender floated in the year 2017 and was asked to place six lorries which was avoided on the ground that if LOI

was for seven lorries, the petitioner ought to have been permitted to place all the seven lorries for which he was allotted the LOI. Apart from this, it

has been submitted that the necessary bank guarantee which was required to be furnished by the petitioner was never furnished. For these reasons,

notice was issued to the petitioner to explain, but the fact of the matter remains that none of the tank lorries of the petitioner was used in transporting

the petroleum products.

Learned counsel for the respondent/BPCL has also submitted that, in fact no agreement was entered into with the petitioner by the BPCL for

providing tank lorries. However, this fact has been disputed by the petitioner.

The argument of Mr. Alok Ranjan, learned Advocate is that deliberately, the petitioner was prevented from placing his tank lorries so as to frustrate

his claim as an existing transporter. Had it not been the case, the petitioner would have been permitted to place all the seven tank lorries and would not

have been asked only to place six of the seven tank lorries. As an evidence of the retaliatory action by the respondent/BPCL, Mr. Alok Ranjan,

learned Advocate has pointed out that during the pendency of this writ petition, the earlier LOI of 2017 tender has been cancelled.

There are many issues which deal with factual situations which are not possible to be agitated and adjudicated in the present writ petition. What

stands clearly established is that even though the petitioner was granted the LOI in an earlier tender, but his vehicle was never used for the same. This

Court will not get into the reasons for non-use of the tank lorries of the petitioner by the respondent/BPCL. If these facts were true, then the petitioner

cannot be stated to be an existing transporter for him to qualify for participating in the new/ad-hoc tender issued in the year 2019.

Referring to the reasons why the petitioner was justified in not placing his tank lorries, because only six of the tank lorries were permitted to be

placed at the disposal of the respondent/BPCL, would amount to entering into thickets of facts, which would neither be necessary nor desirable in the

present writ petition. There cannot be any dispute that under such circumstances, the petitioner cannot be positively be held to be an existing

transporter. In that event, if work was allotted to non- existing transporters, the petitioner would not be entitled to question the same.

The prayer made in the writ petition is, therefore, not worth entertaining.

However, this Court observes that the petitioner may have sufficient reasons for challenging the decision of the respondent/BPCL in cancelling the

LOI granted to him in the year 2017. The petitioner may agitate against such cancellation, which shall be considered on its own merits without being

prejudiced by the present order.

The writ petition stands disposed off with the aforesaid observation.