PATNA, India, Oct. 3 -- Patna High Court issued the following judgment on Sept. 4:

In the instant writ petition, petitioner has prayed for the following reliefs :

"(i) Quashing of the Letter No. 701 dated 07.05.2025 (Annexure P/5) by which the Executive Engineer without any jurisdiction and contrary to the express mandate of the Clause 27 of the Instructions to Bidders has directed the petitioner to submit the rate justification on account of having quoted seriously unbalanced rate;

(ii) Quashing of the consequential Letter No. 801 dated 29.05.2025 (Annexure P/6) by which, the Executive Engineer without any authority of law and contrary to the stipulations under Clause 31.1 and 32.1 of the ITB has issued the Letter of Acceptance with other consequential directions to furnish performance and additional performance guarantee; and

(iii) Restraining the Respondents from proceeding further and giving effect to the Letter No. 701 dated 07.05.2025 and Letter No. 801 dated 29.05.2025 during the pendency of the present writ application and/or the without the leave of this Hon'ble Court."

2. Learned counsel for the petitioner submitted that impugned action is taken by the Executive Engineer who is not the competent authority in the light of the Notice Inviting Tender read with bidding procedures, in particularly Clause 27.4 and further submitted that relevant Clause should have been with reference to 34.1 and not 17.6 of ITB. It is also submitted that time period mentioned is 21 days for certain procedure whereas that has been reduced to 15 days.

3. Per contra, learned Advocate General submitted that Engineer-in-Chief has requested the Executive Engineer to secure rate justification from the petitioner vide communication dated 03.05.2025 (Annexure P/4). Resultantly, the Executive Engineer sought rate justification from the petitioner on 07.05.2025. The petitioner failed to submit rate justification as demanded by the Executive Engineer, thereafter, the Executive Engineer has proceeded to pass order on 29.05.2025 (Annexure P/6). Therefore, there is no infirmity in the impugned action of the respondents for the reasons that Executive Engineer has been asked to take a decision by the Engineer-in-Chief. That apart, there is public interest involved, therefore, trivial issue like whether Executive Engineer or Engineer-in-Chief takes decision, it does not matter.

4. Heard the learned counsels for the respective parties. 5. Facts are not disputed. Learned counsel for the petitioner vehemently contended that Executive Engineer is not the competent authority to take a decision in respect of rates from the petitioner and proceed to pass further consequential order, issuance of letter of acceptance vide communication dated 29.05.2025. It is necessary to reproduce paragraph 27.4 of the Notice Inviting Tender read with bidding procedures, it reads as under :

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Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.