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Judgment
By way of present writ petition, petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs:- "(i) That writ of mandamus may kindly be passed in favor of the petitioner directing the respondents to accept the tender of the petitioner as he fulfilled all the conditions and being the lowest financial bidder prescribed in the tender notice.
(ii) That the writ of in the nature of certiorari may kindly be passed in favour of the petitioner and against the respondents by quashing the award if any granted in favour of any other participant and award the work to the petitioner being the lowest bidder in accordance with law.
(iii) That the respondents may kindly be directed to produce the whole record regarding the tender process and the respondents may kindly be directed to produce the record qua implementing the award and the names and educations qualifications of the persons who have been given appointments.
(iv) Any other relief which this Hon''ble Court deems fit and proper may kindly be granted to the petitioner."
Case of the petitioner in brief is that vide advertisement No. 01 of 2017 (Annexure P-2), respondent- Institute invited tenders for providing outsourcing manpower on the basis of latest minimum wages for unskilled and semi skilled workers notified by the Government of India for carrying out day-to-day office work. Petitioner being eligible, submitted its bid which was opened on 28.03.2017. It is further the case of the petitioner that on the said date details of financial bid was disclosed, in which the petitioner was found to be lowest tenderer. However, as per the petitioner, despite this, respondents in an illegal and arbitrary manner were bent upon to award the work to one M/s M.S. Services Baddi, whose financial bid was higher than that of the petitioner and in this background, petitioner filed present writ petition praying for the relief already quoted above.
It is pertinent to mention that the petition was filed in the Court on 01.04.2017. The case was listed before the Court on 03.04.2017, on which date, the following order was passed:- "CMP No.2199/2017
Allowed and disposed of.
CWP No.613/2017 and CMP No.2200/2017
Notice. Mr. Ashok Sharma, learned Assistant Solicitor General of India appears and waives service of notice on behalf of the respondents. Response be positively filed within a period of two weeks and rejoinder, if any, within one week thereafter.
List on 8.5.2017. In the meanwhile, petitioner shall be allowed to continue to discharge the work already allotted to it. Copy Dasti."
Thereafter, matter was listed on 08.05.2017 in Court, on which date, the following order was passed:- "Response be filed within four weeks. Rejoinder, if any, be filed within four weeks thereafter. Interim order dated 03.04.2017 to continue till further orders."
On 09.05.2017, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner stated before the Court that previous contract of the petitioner had come to an end w.e.f. 31.03.2017 and thereafter, no services were obtained from the petitioner.
On 29.08.2017, M/s M.S. Services Private Limited was impleaded as respondent No. 6 to the writ petition.
In the reply filed to the petition on behalf of respondent-Institute, it stand mentioned therein that the petitioner was earlier awarded a contract from 01.04.2016 upto 31.03.2017, however, petitioner did not carry out the mandatory compliance of the Rules of Central/State Government as regards monthly deposit of CPF and ESI contributions of the employees which were so deployed for rendering services under the contract to the Institute. It is further mentioned in the reply that though the petitioner had participated in the tender process yet keeping in view the fact that tender qua same service stood awarded in favour of the petitioner from 01.04.2016 to 31.03.2017 and as the services of the petitioner were not found satisfactory, it was decided by the Institute that the contract awarded in favour of the petitioner shall not be extended beyond 31.03.2017 despite there being an extension clause in the contract. It also stands mentioned in the reply that financial bid of the petitioner was 1.88% and that of M/s M.S. Services Baddi was 1.92% and taking into consideration the marginal difference it was decided to offer the tender in favour of M/s M.S. Services Baddi in view of unsatisfactory services and non-compliance of the mandatory provisions of law by the petitioner under the previous contract.
No rejoinder stands filed to the reply so filed by the petitioner.
We have heard learned counsel for the parties and have also gone through the records of the case which have been made available to us by learned counsel for the Institute.
It is not in dispute that that petitioner was awarded similar work by respondent-Institute for the previous year commencing from 01.04.2016 to 31.03.2017. It stands mentioned in the reply in detail that not only was the petitioner found wanting in providing the services which were to be provided under the contract even mandatory provisions of law were not complied with by the petitioner.
Be that as it may, a perusal of the official record of the Institute demonstrates that vide letter dated 01.03.2017 Secretary of the Institute had intimated the petitioner that as its previous contract was coming to an end on 31.03.2017 and it stood decided not to renew the said contract, the respondent should submit complete monthly list in support of CPF and ESI contributions. Official records further demonstrate that fresh bids were invited by the respondent-Institute for out sourcing of manpower vide Tender Notice No. 01/2017 and 5 bidders submitted their tenders. Records also demonstrate that whereas service charge quoted in percentage term by the petitioner was 1.88% and that quoted by M/s M.S. Services Private Limited service charge was 1.92%.
Proceedings of Tender Valuation Committee date 28.03.2017 demonstrate that the Committee made the following recommendations:- "After thorough examination of the financial bids on the whole, the Committee has made the following recommendations:-
"I. To award the contract of outsourcing of manpower services to M/s Nuvision Commercial and Escort Services, Shimla, being the L-1 i.e. 1.88 (one point eight per cent).
II. To have a formal contractual agreement with M/s Nuvision Commercial and Escort Services, Shimla, as mentioned in the tender documents in the due course.
III. Recommended to keep the second and third lowest firms i.e. (M.S. Service Pvt. Ltd., Solan and M/s Corporate Care, New Shimla respectively) in the panel list to avoid the tender repetition, if the first lowest quoted firm fails to provide the services, and without furnishing a fresh tender, the second lowest quoted firm (the 1.92%) will be given the work order and if the first and second firms fails to provide the services the third lowest quoted firm (the 2.05%) will be given the work order.
Apart from above, it is also placed on record that one of the Committee Members, Shri Ravinder Saini was not in opinion to award the contract to L-1 firm. The Chair permitted him to give his recommendations in separate note which is placed here as Annexure ''B''."
Noting portion of the official records demonstrates that when the said recommendations were placed before the Director, he passed the following directions:- "1. The reason for going for this tender was the fact that the institute was not satisfied with the services of M/s Nuvision Commercial & Escort Services. This has been recorded in detail when the approval for this tender was sought.
The response of M/s Nuvision Commercial & Escort Services to the letter dated 1-3-17 is also not satisfactory. It is not verified by ESIC and EPFO and he has included a large number of names unrelated to the institute.
So the contract should be award to the next L-1 i.e. M/s M.S. Services Pvt. Ltd."
It is in this background that the contract stood awarded in favour of M/s Services Private Limited.
From the above discussion, it is apparent that decision to award the contract in favour of the private respondent was taken by the Institute in view of its dissatisfaction over the quality of services rendered to it in the previous year by the petitioner. It is further a matter of record that quoted bid of private respondent which stands accepted by the respondent-Institute is not exceedingly excessive to the one quoted by the petitioner, the same is only marginally. In fact, we are satisfied after perusing record that decision which has been taken by the Institute to award contract in favour of respondent No. 2 is not a motivated decision but the same has been taken in the best interest of the Institute. Besides this, we find that the term of contract which stands awarded in favour of the private respondent otherwise ended on 31.03.2017.
In view of above, as we do not find any merit in the present petition, the same is accordingly dismissed, so also pending miscellaneous application(s), if any. No order as to costs.