[[draftt]]Bombay HC Asks Petitioner To Approach Pune Municipal Corporation Commissioner In PIL Filed On Illegality In Tender For Cleaning/Sweeping of Road
![[[draftt]]Bombay HC Asks Petitioner To Approach Pune Municipal Corporation Commissioner In PIL Filed On Illegality In Tender For Cleaning/Sweeping of Road](https://lawbeat.in/sites/default/files/news_images/Bombay HC + cleaning + PIL.jpeg "[[draftt]]Bombay HC Asks Petitioner To Approach Pune Municipal Corporation Commissioner In PIL Filed On Illegality In Tender For Cleaning/Sweeping of Road")
The PIL filed before the High Court states that neither the Municipal Corporation will come to the Honourable High Court nor the contractors will also come to the Hon'ble High Court because they have been held by the Administrative Officer.
A division bench of Bombay High Court comprising of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice Madhav J Jamdar on Monday asked the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) to file a reply in a Public Interest Litigation filed against PMC for tender invited by PMC to outsource labour for cleaning and sweeping of the roads.
The PIL filed before the High Court filed by Senior Advocate Anil V. Anturkar and Advocate Ajinkya Udane states that clause No.12 states that the 10% of the Bank guarantee should be provided and presented and paid along with the bid document / technical evaluation in the start itself and that such clause cannot be found in any other bid document issued by PMC. Therefore, the said clause was inserted to eliminate the small bidders.
The PIL also states that the tender document requires the bidders to file Professional Tax Clearance Certificate before a particular date and that the said certificate was filed after the due date due to which the bid shall be rejected. However, the PMC has allowed the bidders to rectify the same and accepted the bid. Further, one of the respondents who has been allotted 14 offices has submitted a fake certificate and declaration which is not verified by the PMC.
The PIL has prayed before the court:
1. To issue a writ of mandamus under Article 226 of the Constitution by quashing and setting aside the tender and proceedings.
2. To prevent the PMC from giving any work to the respondents pending the disposal of the case.
3. To award the costs in favor of the petitioner.
The Bombay High Court while directing PMC to file a reply noted that “Instead of insisting for the performance guarantee after the stage of identification of L-1 bidder has been reached, the Corporation has been insisting for such performance guarantee even at the time of submission of the bids.”
Further, the court also noted that if one of the bidders who had filed fabricated documents had been disqualified there would have been only one qualified bidder and according to the government resolution a re-tender would have to be issued.
Case Title: Pramod Premchand Oswal vs Pune Municipal Corporation & Ors.