Calcutta High Court (Appellete Side)Arun Sign Services Private Ltd. & Anr vs State Of West Bengal & Ors on 8 May, 2015Author:Joymalya BagchiBench:Joymalya Bagchi1


 8    08.5.15                       W.P. 9289 (w) of 2015
akb
                              Arun Sign Services Private Ltd. & Anr.
                                             -Versus-
                                   State of West Bengal & Ors.

                Mr. Nilanjan Bhattacharjee
                Ms. Debarati Bhattacharya            ...For the petitioners

                Mr. Jayjit Ganguly
                Mr. Pradeep Sancheti
                Ms. Ankita Mukherjee                 ...For the RespondentsNo. 4 and 5Mr. Jaharlal De
                Mr. Ashoke Kumar Ganguly             ...For the State Respondents


                              The petitioner, who is carrying on business of outdoor
                advertisements and media publication is aggrieved by the illegal
                manner, arbitrary, and malicious use of the State Governments'
                machinery to float the tender for erection of hoarding and display of
                advertisement on hoarding belongs to Vivekananda Yuba Bharati
                Krirangan, at the adjacent of E.M. Bye pass and adjacent to VIP Gate.It is the contention of the learned Counsel appearing for
                the petitioners that the tender was floated in violation of the
                guidelines issued by the Finance Department of Government of West
                Bengal vide Memo No. 5400-F(Y), Dated, Kolkata, the June 25, 2012,
                which reads a follows :-"Note 2 - Tender notice shall always be given due publication
                through the leading dailies in English, Hindi and Bengali. The
                use of intermediate general suppliers should be discouraged.
                Open tender for supply of articles or stores or for execution of
                works worth Rs. 1,00,000/- or more shall be invited in the
                following manner :Sl.No.            Item                         Manner of Tender _1.       For supply of articles or   Publication of the work on the
                         for execution of works      official website of the
                         and services with esti-     administrative department, if
                         mated value exceeding       maintained.
                         Rs. 10,000 upto
                         Rs. 1 lakh.2.       For supply of articles or   Publication of the work on the
                         for execution of works      notice board and on the
                         and services with           website of the administrative
                         estimated value exceed-     department, if maintained
                         ing Rs. 1 lakh upto         and also brief referral adver-Rs. 5 lakh.                 tisement in one daily Bengali
                                                     newspaper [in case of hill
                                                     areas of Darjeeling District
                                                     in Nepali newspaper.3.       For supply of articles or   Publication of the work on the
                         for execution of works      notice board and on the
                         services with estimated     website of the administrative2value exceeding Rs. 5         department, if maintained
        lakh upto Rs. 10 lakh         and also brief referral
                                      advertisement in two daily
                                      newspapers, one in Bengali [in
                                      case of hill areas of Darjeeling
                                      District in Nepali newspaper
                                      and the other in English.."The learned Counsel argues that in terms of the
prescribed Rules that the respondent authorities were bound to
publish the Tender Notice in at least one daily Bengali newspaper in
respect of the aforesaid tender, which they have not done and the
tender has been surreptitiously awarded to the private respondents.The   learned    Counsel    appearing      for   the   private
respondents disputes such fact and submits that the tender notice
was published in accordance with law. There was publication in the
notice board as well as website of the administrative department. He
further submits the petitioner is an interested individual and ought
not to be permitted to maintain the public interest litigation.        The
work order had been issued long ago and they have, in fact, been
carrying on the advertisement activities for long.Having heard the learned counsel appearing for the
respective parties, we find that it is not a case of complete absence of
publication of the tender notice.         Admittedly the tender was
advertised in notice board as well as website of the administrative
department. No doubt there is dispute as to whether there was
advertisement made in a daily newspaper or not, but in view of
publication of the tender notice in the notice board and the website of
the concerned department it cannot be said there was a complete
departure from the said guidelines of the Finance Department.The petitioner however has filed a representation in this
regard before the concerned Secretary which is annexed to the writ
petition.In the aforesaid facts we direct the respondent No. 1 to
consider the representation of the petitioners annexed to this petition
and take a reasoned decision thereon after giving an opportunity of
hearing to the petitioner as well as the affected parties within a period
of four weeks from the date of communication of this order.The writ petition is, thus, disposed of.There would be no order as to costs.Urgent photostat certified copy of this order, if applied3for, be given to the parties, on priority basis.( Manjula Chellur, Chief Justice )


                                              ( Joymalya Bagchi, J. )