Telangana High Court
The State Of Telangana And 17 Others vs M/S Sai Krishna Fish Seed Farm on 17 August, 2020
Author: Raghvendra Singh Chauhan
Bench: Raghvendra Singh Chauhan, B.Vijaysen Reddy
THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN
AND
THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE B. VIJAYSEN REDDY
WRIT APPEAL No. 260 OF 2020
JUDGMENT:(Per the Hon'ble the Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan) With the consent of both the learned counsel, this appeal is being decided at the admission stage itself.
The appellant, the State of Telangana, is aggrieved by the Order, dated 29.07.2020, passed by a learned Single Judge in I.A. No. 1 of 2020 in W.P. No. 11560 of 2020, whereby the learned Single Judge has directed the appellant to evaluate the petitioner's offer along with the other offers and consider the bid of the petitioner.
For the sake of convenience, the parties will be referred to as they were referred in the writ petition.
Briefly, the facts of the case are that the petitioner, M/s. Sai Krishna Fish Seed Farm, claims to have fish ponds in Vanchanagiri Village, Geesugonda Mandal, Warangal Rural District, Kutigal Village, Tharigoppula Mandal, Siddipet District and Thummadam Village, Nidamanoor Mandal, Nalgonda District. According to the petitioner, it is engaged in rearing fish seedlings in the fish ponds in the said three places, and supplying the same to the Government. Moreover, respondent Nos. 3 to 10, who are the Chairpersons of the District Purchase Committee of the different districts of the State, published a tender notice in the daily newspapers calling for bid documents for rearing and selling of the fish seedlings. Consequently, the petitioner submitted its bid documents for eight districts of the State, namely (i) Warangal 2 Rural, (ii) Warangal Urban, (iii) Jayashankar Bhupalpally, (iv) Mahabubabad, (v) Jangaon, (vi) Mulugu, (vii) Siddipet, and (viii) Nalgonda. The bid documents, according to the petitioner, were submitted online as under:-
a) General information of the bidder in Form P1
b) Turnover details in Form P2
c) Details of the Bids submitted district wise
d) Registration Certificate issued by the competent authority.
e) Undertaking stating that the bidder was not block listed as per the Clause B.1.4
f) Bid document fee deposit slip/on line transfer confirmation.
g) Copy of PAN Card, IT returns of 3 years.
Furthermore, according to the petitioner, after opening the bid documents, the officers of the Fisheries Department started inspecting the fish ponds of each and every tenderer. However, no officer inspected the fish ponds belonging to the petitioner. Therefore, the petitioner sought certain information from the Department. He was orally informed that his bid tender has been disqualified by the respondents. Hence, the petitioner filed the writ petition before the learned Single Judge.
As mentioned above, the learned Single Judge has issued directions to the appellant. Hence, the present writ appeal before this Court.
Mr. Ramachander Rao, the learned Additional Advocate General, submits that the observation made by the learned Single Judge that "a perusal of the bid document which the petitioner submitted, this Court does not find any variation at all, and the reason stated is prima facie unsustainable", is highly misplaced. 3 For, the format of the bid document clearly stated that in Form T-1 (Technical Bid), a second table would need to be provided, which would clearly spell out the source of Fish Seed Hatchery (within the bidder's farm/other hatchery). The said tabular form contains certain information, namely (i) The name of the hatchery, (ii) Production capacity in lakhs, (iii) Name of the village, (iv) Name of the mandal and (v) Name of the district. The most important information, according to the learned Additional Advocate General, is "production capacity in lakhs". However, according to the learned Additional Advocate General, a bare perusal of the tender bid form submitted by the petitioner would clearly reveal that while submitting T-1 (Technical Bid), in the second tabulation, the petitioner has failed to mention the "production capacity in lakhs". Instead, the petitioner has merely mentioned the name of the hatchery, total extent of farm in Survey number (in Hector), the name of the village, name of the mandal, and the name of the district. Therefore, the most crucial information is conspicuously missing from Table-2 of Form T-1 (Technical Bid) submitted by the petitioner. Therefore, the learned Single Judge is unjustified in opining that, in fact, there is no variation from the format so prescribed by the appellant, and the technical bid so submitted by the petitioner. According to the learned Additional Advocate General, in case the bid document does not comply with the format, and fails to be in consonance with the format, so prescribed by the appellant, the appellant is well within its power to disqualify the bid, and not to consider it at all.
On the other hand, Mr. A. Prabhakar Rao, the learned counsel for the petitioner, submits that even according to the 4 format prescribed by the appellant, the finalization of a bid is a three-step procedure, namely (i) the pre-qualification i.e. examination of the bid documents, and (ii) the technical bid to be opened, and (iii) the financial bid to be examined. Secondly, the information required in Table-2 of Form T-I may not have been mentioned by the petitioner in the bid document, but nonetheless, the said information was readily available in another part of the Form, namely Form T-3. Therefore, there was a substantive compliance of the format issued by the appellant. Lastly, even according to the guidelines issued by the appellant "prior to the detailed evaluation, the District Purchase Committee would determine the substantial responsiveness of each bid to the bidding documents. For the purpose of these clauses, a substantial responsive bid is compliance to all the terms and conditions of the bidding documents without material deviation." Therefore, according to the learned counsel, since the crucial information required in Table-2, Form T-1 was furnished in Form T-3, there was a "substantial responsiveness". Hence, the appellant was not justified in disqualifying the petitioner.
Heard the learned counsel for the parties, and perused the record.
It is, indeed, trite to state that once a format has been prescribed by the appellant, the petitioner and other bidders are legally bound to conform to the format, so prescribed by the appellant. For, while considering the bid document, all the relevant and crucial information has to be stated in the columns/spaces given in the format. The competent authority is not expected to go on a wild goose chase, and to look for a needle 5 inside a haystack by scrutinizing the information submitted by the bidder. If the competent authority were expected to look for a piece of information, which is not given in the space provided for it, it would make the examination of bid document a chaotic exercise. Therefore, in order to ensure a sense of order and logic, while considering the bid document, all the bidders are required to furnish the relevant information in the column/space so specified for seeking the relevant information.
A bare perusal of the format prescribed by the appellant clearly reveals that in Table-2, Form T-1 (Technical Bid), five pieces of information were sought for, namely (i) The name of the hatchery, (ii) Production capacity in lakhs, (iii) Name of the village,
(iv) Name of the mandal and (v) Name of the district. Comparing the format, with the bid document submitted by the petitioner, it is clearly seen that in Table-2, Form T-1, the petitioner has not mentioned "the production capacity in lakhs". But merely mentioned name of the hatchery, total extent of farm in Survey number (in Hector), the name of the village, name of the mandal, and the mane of the district. Hence, obviously, the most crucial piece of information, namely the production capacity in lakhs, is conspicuously missing from the bid documents submitted by the petitioner. Once this crucial piece of information is not available in the format given by the appellant, the appellant would certainly be justified in rejecting the bid document.
The contention raised by the learned counsel for the petitioner that the said information is available in another part of the bid document, namely in T-3, is hardly an argument worth accepting. For, as stated above, the competent authority is not 6 expected to go on probing enquiry trying to locate the essential information by microscopically examining the bid document. Therefore, the petitioner is not justified in claiming that the essential information has been mentioned in another part of the document.
The guidelines define "substantial responsiveness" as "the compliance of all the terms and conditions of the bidding documents without material deviation". However, the absence of crucial information, from the given column, would amount to material deviation from the bid document. Therefore, the contention that merely because the crucial information is contained in another part of the bid document, hence, there is a "substantial responsiveness" is unacceptable.
Considering the fact that there is certainly a deviation and a non-compliance of the format provided by the appellant to the petitioner, the observation made by the learned Single Judge that in fact, there is no variation at all, is rather misplaced.
For the reasons stated above, this appeal is, hereby, allowed. The order, dated 29.07.2020, is set aside. No order as to costs.
Pending Miscellaneous Petitions, if any, stand closed.
________________________________________ (RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN, CJ) _____________________________ (B. VIJAYSEN REDDY, J) August 17, 2020 Tsr 7 THE HON'BLE THE CHIEF JUSTICE RAGHVENDRA SINGH CHAUHAN AND THE HON'BLE SRI JUSTICE B. VIJAYSEN REDDY WRIT APPEAL No. 260 OF 2020 (Per the Hon'ble the Chief Justice Raghvendra Singh Chauhan) 17.08.2020 Tsr