The Madras High Court on Thursday dismissed a writ petition filed by a bidder alleging arbitrariness, perversity, mala fide intention and favouritism in award of a government contract to supply 50.09 lakh pairs of footwear to be distributed free of cost to students of government as well as government-aided private schools for the year 2018-19.
Justice R. Mahadevan rejected the case filed by Shamsons Polymers of Uttar Pradesh after holding that the Tamil Nadu Textbook and Educational Services Corporation had scrupulously followed provisions of the Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Act of 1998.
“The petitioner, who had made allegations without any materials, itself had claimed to have had an informer who not only leaked information about rejection of its technical bid but also about the price quoted by other participants. Hence, this court is of the opinion that the petitioner has not come to this court with clean hands,” the judge said.
The judge pointed out that the samples submitted by the petitioner had been accepted by the very same expert body in 2016-17 and it was awarded the contract then. However, in the successive years, the samples were not found to be of the standard expected by the expert body and hence the rejection of the company’s bids.
State’s prerogative
“It is the prerogative of the State or the body inviting tender to prescribe for pre-qualifications. Such prescription of pre-qualifications in itself cannot be termed as arbitrary or breeding ground for corruption, rather it is only in public interest that the quality or the specification must be meted out,” Mr. Justice Mahadevan said.
He also refused to accept the contention that Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CISR)-Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI) was not qualified to test the sample since it was reportedly not accredited with National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL).
“This court is not in consonance with such contention as it is the discretion of the tender inviting authority to choose the expert as per the rules and the tender conditions. It is not for the petitioner to state as to who should be expert or the method to be deployed for testing the samples,” the judge said.
He pointed out that the textbook corporation had forwarded the samples of various bidders with a unique code and the CISR-CLRI had in turn assigned different codes to them in order to maintain secrecy. Satisfied with the procedure adopted, the judge said, under such circumstances, there could not have been any scope for any malpractice.
“The contention that images could have been sent by WhatsApp is presumptive and hence rejected. Yet another contention of the petitioner that all samples were not put to test is also rejected in view of the stand taken by CSIR-CLRI that all samples were tested,” the judge concluded.