M/s Oscar Securities and Fire Service vs State of Uttarakhand & Others

SUDHANSHU DHULIA, J. (ORAL)

Municipal Corporation, Roorkee had invited tenders from eligible candidates for supply of manpower to the Corporation. Present petitioner, who

hails from Haryana, was one of the bidders. It was a two bid process. The petitioner qualified the technical bid and thereafter it is again an admitted

case that the petitioner is L-1 out of all the candidates who had qualified the technical bid. All the same, instead of granting contract in favour of the

petitioner, the Municipal Corporation has granted the contract to L-2 i.e. respondent no. 3 before this Court.

On the date when the writ petition was filed, there was no contention on behalf of the petitioner that the contract by that time had already been

executed in favour of the respondent no. 3. Contract was actually awarded in favour of respondent no. 3 on 14.4.2018 and the agreement was

executed on 28.4.2018, much prior to the filing of the present writ petition. All the same, the Counsel for the petitioner Sri Bhupesh Kandpal states that

he was never aware of these developments, else he would have apprised this Court.

The ground for disqualifying the petitioner, however, is that solvency certificate given by the petitioner was in fact not a solvency certificate, but it

was a mere affidavit of the petitioner. There was a mandatory condition for the bidding that a candidate has to give the solvency certificate wherein it

must be certified that he is having financial capacity of more than rupees seventy five lakhs.

In the State of Uttarakhand, admittedly, such a certificate is given by the revenue authorities. Private respondent no. 3 has also given the solvency

certificate which was issued by the revenue authorities after an inquiry from concerned Tehsildar. Presumably such is also the process in the State of

Haryana where the petitioner resides.

Admittedly, petitioner in this case has not given such a certificate. He has instead stated on oath that he has property worth more than rupees one

crore and this declaration on the affidavit has been attested by the municipal authorities of Panipat. This, however, cannot be treated as the proper

“Haisiyat Pram Patra†(Solvency Certificate). There was another condition of bidding that the “Haisiyat Praman Patra†has to be issued not

prior to six months from the date of tender notice. It ipso facto means that such a certificate has to be “issued†by an authority. It cannot be a

self-declaratory affidavit as was in case of the petitioner.

In the present case, the petitioner has given an affidavit that he has such means. There are two aspects before this Court. One is that at the time

when the petitioner approached this Court, the contract was already executed in favour of the respondent no. 2, who is already functioning since

1.5.2018. Moreover, the petitioner’s bid was actually non-responsive.

Undoubtedly, the petitioner was not qualified for the reason that he had not submitted the solvency certificate as required under the law, therefore,

no relief can be granted to the petitioner. The petition is therefore dismissed.

Interim order stands vacated.