Case Law Details
Fewas Ashraf Vs Kavannur Grama Panchayath (Kerala High Court)
The issue under consideration is whether the gram panchayath is correct in rejecting the lowest bid amount tender submitted by the petitioner just because tax disclosure and test report is not submitted by him?
High Court states that the prime reason for the Gram Panchayath for not accepting the tender of the petitioner is that the petitioner did not quote tax amounts even though the conditions required disclosure of tax burden. The defence of the petitioner is that he is paying composite tax and therefore he need not pay GST. To establish this fact, the petitioner produced statement for payment of self-assessed tax. It would show that the payment of self-assessed tax for the quarter January–March 2019-’20, has been filed. But, it was filed only on 16.07.2020, which is much after filing of the writ petition. There is nothing on record to show that the petitioner was composite dealer as on the date of filing of the tender application. As the petitioner left the columns relating to tax element blank, Gram Panchayath could not assess the actual cost of the work in his bid. As the tender submitted by the petitioner was not complete in all respects, Gram Panchayath rejected the same. HC do not find any illegality or arbitrariness on the part of Gram Panchayath in doing so.
Further, the case of Gram Panchayath is that the petitioner did not upload test report and did not supply samples. The petitioner states that samples were supplied along with the tender application and test report was actually uploaded. The tender process started in the year 2020 and test report allegedly submitted by the petitioner is of the year 2017. When Gram Panchayath demanded test report, the bidders are expected to provide test reports of recent origin. Uploading of a three year old test report will not serve the purpose. For this reason also, rejection of petitioner’s bid is justified.
Accordingly, the writ petition lacks merit and it is consequently dismissed.
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