CONSTITUTION OF INDIA, 1950

Art. 226 - Second writ petition - Maintainability - Breakwater contract - Successful bidder (respondent) subsequently found ineligible as it did not meet the basic qualifying conditions of offshore breakwater - Fresh tenders invited - Writ petition by respondent challenging annulment of tender process and rejection of its bid - Dismissed as not pressed, with liberty to seek redress if respondent was excluded from consideration in fresh tender - Second writ petition involving the same issues as in earlier writ petition, as also challenging the fresh tender notice - Allowed by High Court - Held: Liberty granted to file a fresh petition was limited to any such fresh challenge being laid by the respondent to its exclusion in terms of any fresh tender notice - The order passed by the High Court did not permit the respondent to re-open and re-agitate issues regarding rejection of its bid pursuant to the earlier tender notice and the annulment of the entire tender process, even if the second tender notice sought to disqualify it from competition by altering the conditions of eligibility to its disadvantage - To that extent, the subsequent writ petition was not maintainable - There is no finding by the High Court on the eligibility of the respondent - The question regarding eligibility of respondent cannot be resolved in the absence of any conclusive evidence, and in the absence of a specific finding from the High Court, on the question - Matter remanded to High Court for decision afresh in accordance with the directions given in the judgment - Contract - Administrative Law - Malice in law and malice in fact.

ADMINSTRATIVE LAW: 

Malice in fact - Administrative action - Findings recorded by High Court as regards malafides - Held: The law casts a heavy burden on the person alleging malafides to prove the same on the basis of facts that are either admitted or satisfactorily established and/or logical inferences deducible from the same - This is particularly so when the petitioner alleges malice in fact in which event it is obligatory for the person making any such allegation to furnish particulars that would prove mala fides on the part of the decision maker - Vague and general allegations unsupported by requisite particulars do not provide a sound basis for the court to conduct an inquiry into their veracity - Further, as and when allegations of mala fides are made, the persons against whom the same are levelled need to be impleaded as parties to the proceedings to enable them to answer the charge - In the case at hand, there was no allegation of "malice in fact" against any individual, nor was any individual accused of bias, spite or ulterior motive, impleaded as a party to the writ petition - High Court named the officers concerned and concluded that the integrity of the entire process was suspect, which was wholly unjustified in the circumstances of the case.

Malice in law - Held: If on an interpretation of a clause in the tender notice by the legal department concerned, the officers review their decision or reverse the recommendations · made earlier, the same does not tantamount to malice in law so as to affect the purity of the entire process or render it suspect even assuming that the opinion is on a more thorough and seasoned consideration found to be wrong - Nothing in the instant case was done without a reasonable or probable cause which is the very essence of the doctrine of malice in law vitiating administrative actions.