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...as floating of tender and its finalization may take some time, we have to look also the apprehension of E.C. As opined by E.C. after discussion the present procurement is of low quality compared to Polyester Hologram labels and can be duplicated. So, for the interim period we may authorize E.C. to procure high quality safe labels at a lesser price than procurement price of other Governments.
Apart from floating the tender, a decision was taken in course of finalization of the tender that these holograms shall be procured from the open market. Thereafter the first meeting of the Tender Committee was held on 1-5-2007. The proposal for constitution of Technical Sub-Committee consisting of the Commissioner of Excise, Orissa, as its Chairman and Deputy Excise Commissioner (CD), Cuttack, Director (Technical), Orissa Govt. Press, Cuttack, Asst. Director (Printing), Text Book Press, Bhubaneswar, and Deputy Director (Quality Control), Bhubaneswar, and two Technical Experts, one from the Central Scientific Instruments Organisation, Chandigarh, and the other from the Department of Printing Technology, Jadavpur University, Kolkata, as members, got the approval of the Govt. on 28.6.2007 and on 2.7.2007 the Technical Sub-Committee was formed. The notes dated 2.7.2007 of the A.F.A.-cum-Under Secretary indicates that request letters for sending technical experts with the terms and conditions had been transmitted to the aforesaid two organizations through E-mail on 18.6.2007, but no response had been received till then. The office note dated 27.7.2007 at page 15/n of the part file indicates that two technical experts from outside the State, i.e., one from CSIO, Chandigarh and the other from the Department of Printing Technology, Jadavpur University, had been intimated to attend the evaluation committee meeting on 30.7.2007 and the official correspondences had already been transmitted to them through fax and though they had received the fax, they did not confirm regarding their attending the evaluation committee meeting for which they were contacted over phone. The note sheets further, shows that CSIO asked for flight tickets in advance for to and fro journey of the expert to Bhubaneswar. Thereafter, it is indicated in the note sheet that there is no provision under the financial rules to allow flight tickets in advance to a non-Governmental person and in spite of the best effort, the Registrar, Jadavpur University, could not be contacted. The tender opening meeting was held at 11.00 a.m. on 30.7.2007 and after scrutiny, the technical bids of six bidders who participated in the tender process were handed over to the Technical Sub-Committee for technical evaluation. The Technical Sub-Committee evaluated the tenders on 30.7.2007. The proceeding of the meeting of the Technical Sub-Committee held on 21.8.2007 shows that the meeting was held in presence of the Chairman Shri Sudarsan Nayak, Excise Commissioner, Orissa, and the members, namely Shri S.P. Misra, Managing Director, O.S.B.C, Shri Suresh Chandra Panigrahi, E.D.C., Shri Hemanta Mishra, Director (Technical), O.G.P., ShriTushar Kanti Ghosh, Asst. Director, T.B.P.M. and Shri Sudhir Kumar Mishra, Asst. Director, E.P.M. It is indicated in the aforesaid proceeding that the Technical Sub-Committee opened the expert opinion given by Dr. A.K. Agrawal, Emeritus Scientist, CISR and went through the technical evaluation made by the expert of the samples of all the tenderers. The Committee, after due examination, decided to accept the technical evaluation and expert opinion of Dr. A.K. Agrawal. The technical evaluation of the labels made by the expert was decided to form part of the proceedings. So far as the Petitioner's sample is concerned, the Technical Sub-Committee observed as follows:

The Joint Secretary of the Dept. in his notes dated 2.8.2007 at page 21/n suggested that the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee, i.e., the Excise Commissioner, may take the responsibility to get the samples tested by any reliable agency decided by him and the same was approved by the Commissioner-cum-secretary with the observation to write to the expert as suggested by the Chairman of the Technical Sub-Committee and request for his expert opinion.

The entire process took a turn here. The decision to leave the matter to the Excise Commissioner to get the samples tested by any reliable agency decided by him is contrary to the decision of the State Govt., which is a conscious decision to include two technical experts, i.e., one from Jadavpur University and the other from CSIO, Chandigarh, in. the Technical Sub-Committee. Non-inclusion of those two technical experts was due to the reason of not granting to and fro air fare in advance to the expert from CSIO and on the ground of delay in receiving the consent from the expert of Jadavpur University. It is crystal clear that both these technical experts were kept out of the Technical Sub-Committee while evaluating the technical bids and the technical evaluation was done in the absence of the technical experts.