High Court
Case Details
WP(C) 4439/2013 PRESENT HON’BLE MR JUSTICE UJJAL BHUYAN J U D G M E N T AND O R D E R (ORAL)
Legal Reasoning
Heard Mr. U.K. Nair, learned Counsel for the petitioner and Mr. B. Chetri, learned Senior Government Advocate, Assam. Also heard Mr. HRA Choudhu ry, learned Senior Counsel for respondent No.5. 2. By way of this petition under article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner seeks quashing of settlement order dated 01-08-2013 issued by the Chief Executive Officer, Darrang Zilla Parishad settling Banglagarh Weekly Cattle Market with respondent No.5. Case of the petitioner is that Paschim Mangaldoi Anchalik Pancha 3. yat had issued a notice inviting tender (NIT) dated 06-05-2013 for settlement of various markets within its jurisdiction including the Banglagarh Weekly Cattle Market (Market) for the year 2013-14 i.e. for the period 01-07-2013 to 30-06-201 4. Minimum Government bid value for the market was fixed at Rs.23,00,000/-. In r esponse to the said NIT, petitioner submitted his tender for the said market. Ac cording to the petitioner, he could not submit land valuation certificate as it was not issued from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Darrang, which was me ntioned in the tender. All the tenderers could not submit land valuation certifi cate. 4. Tenders were opened on 24-06-2013. Altogether ten tenderers had submitted tender. All the tenders except the one at serial No.3 were found valid . Bid offered by petitioner was Rs.47,53,786/-, which was the highest bid, and b id offered by respondent No.5 was Rs.31,32,701/-, which was the seventh valid hi ghest bid. 5. Anchalik Panchayat prepared the comparative statement in respect o f all the bidders and forwarded the same to the Zilla Parishad. Standing Committ ee of the Zilla Parishad in its meeting held on 31-07-2013 decided to give settl ement of the market in favour of respondent No.5 at his offered bid value of Rs. 31,32,701/-, though he was only the 7th highest valid bidder. Thereafter, Chief Executive Officer of Darrang Zilla Parishad issued order dated 01-08-2013 settli ng the market with respondent No.5 at his offered bid value of Rs.31,32,701/-. 6. nging the legality and validity of such settlement. Aggrieved, petitioner has filed the present writ petition challe 7. Neither Darrang Zilla Parishad nor Paschim Mangaldoi Anchalik Pa nchayat has filed any affidavit. State has also not filed any affidavit but lear ned State Counsel Mr. B. Chetri has produced the settlement record. 8. Respondent No.5 i.e. the settlement holder has filed affidavit. While partly admitting the statements made by the petitioner in paragraph 3 of t he writ petition as per which petitioner has stated that none of the tenderers c ould submit the land valuation certificate as they did not receive such certifi cate from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, respondent No.5 has stated that the General Standing Committee of Darrang Zilla Parishad in its meeting held on 25-07-2013 adopted a resolution to accept land evaluation certificate issued by the Government for the last five years from 2008 to 2012-13. Respondent No.5 ha s further stated that he had submitted land valuation certificate of the year 20 09 alongwith his tender. Writ petitioner did not submit land valuation certifica te. Tenders of the tenderers 1 to 7 were found defective as per comparative stat ement prepared whereas tender of the respondent No.5 being the next highest bidd er was found to be in order. Accordingly, the Zilla Parishad decided to settle t he market with respondent No.5 at his bid value of Rs.31,32,701/-. Mr. Nair, learned Counsel for the petitioner submitted that as p 9. er requirement of NIT, the tenderer and the guarantor are required to submit lan d valuation certificates in respect of the immovable property offered as surety from the concerned Circle Officer, which has to be countersigned by the Addition al Deputy Commissioner (Revenue). The same has to be mentioned in the tender. As per requirement of NIT, all the documents enclosed with the tender will have to be of the year 2012-13. He submitted that the office of the Deputy Commissioner , Darrang did not issue such land valuation certificate for the year 2012-13 to any of the tenderers and, therefore, none of them could submit such certificate for the year 2012-13. Though the state respondents have not filed any affidavit, respondent No.5 has filed affidavit and in his affidavit, he has admitted the a bove position. However, the contention of respondent No.5 that Darrang Zilla Par ishad took a decision on 25-07-2013 to accept land valuation certificate issued by the Government for the last five years i.e. from 2008 to 2012-13 is wholly un tenable and cannot be accepted as it would amount to changing the rules of the g ame after the tenders were opened. Petitioner being the highest bidder, his tend er could not have been ignored by the respondents in view of the mandate of Rule 47(10) of the Assam Panchayat (Financial) Rules, 2002 as per which tender of th e highest bidder has to be accepted and acceptance of tender other than the high est bid would require the prior and formal approval of the Government. Therefore , impugned settlement is illegal and should be set aside. 10. While Mr. Chetri, learned Senior Government Advocate has produce d the record and submitted that tender of the petitioner was defective as he did not submit land valuation certificate, Mr. H.R.A. Choudhury, learned Senior Cou nsel appearing for respondent No.5 submitted that since the tenders of the bidde rs above respondent No.5 were found to be invalid, settlement has been rightly m ade with respondent No.5. 11. ecord. Submissions made have been considered. I have also perused the r 12. From the comparative statement it is seen that the tender of the petitioner, the highest bidder, was rejected on the ground that land valuation certificate was not enclosed. Similar is the case with the second highest tender er. A perusal of the tender documents of respondent No.5 discloses that he had s ubmitted land valuation certificate dated 18-07-2009. As per tender requirement, the certificates enclosed with the tender should be of the year 2012-13. I did not find anything in the record to show that any decision was taken by the Zilla Parishad to accept land valuation certificate of last 5 years from 2008 to 2012 -13. In any case, as rightly argued by learned Counsel for the petitioner, such a decision could not have been taken by the Zilla Parishad once tenders were sub mitted and opened. Moreover, contention of the petitioner that no land valuation certificate for the year 2012-13 was issued by the office of the Deputy Commiss ioner has remained un-controverted in so far the official respondents are concer ned. However, the same has been admitted by respondent No.5, who submitted land valuation certificate of the year 2009. 13. When land valuation certificate for the year 2012-13 were not av ailable, Zilla Parishad ought of have applied uniform standard in the case of al l the tenderers. Rejecting the tender of the petitioner on the ground that he di d not submit land valuation certificate while accepting the land valuation certi ficate of the year 2009 in the case of respondent No.5 is not justified. Highest bid offered in a tender should not be lightly overlooked since augmentation of revenue for the panchayat body is concerned. 14. Having regard to the above, Court is of the view that a fresh de cision is required to be taken by the Darrang Zilla Parishad in respect of settl ement of the market consistent with the observations made above. Accordingly, ma tter is remanded back to the settling authority for a fresh decision in accordan ce with law which shall be taken within a period of 1(one) month from the date o f receipt of a certified copy of this order. Impugned settlement order dated 01- 08-2013 would be subject to such further decision that may be taken by the settl ing authority. 15. 16. Writ petition is allowed to the extent indicated above. Record produced by learned State Counsel is returned back.