Mr. Vineet Saran, C.J. - In response to Tender Call Notice (e-Tender) dated 17.12.2015 invited by the Odisha State Medical Corporation Limited (for short "OSMCL"), the petitioner had submitted its online bid on 18.01.2016 which was within the time provided in the tender notice. On 20.01.2016, the technical bids were opened and certain clarification was sought for from the petitioner by the General Manager of the opposite party-OSMCL, to which the petitioner had responded. Then, on 09.02.2016, the Technical Evaluation Committee in its meeting rejected the tender of the petitioner with regard to the items for which the petitioner had submitted its bid on the ground that "declaration (Format T5) uploaded is not signed". Aggrieved by the same, the petitioner submitted representation to the Managing Director of OSMCL on 23.02.2016 as, according to the petitioner, the said order of rejection was uploaded on the website only on 22.02.2016. The representation of the petitioner is still pending. Challenging the said rejection of the tender of the petitioner, this writ petition has been filed.

2. We have heard Sri A.R. Dash, learned counsel for the petitioner, as well as Sri B.P. Tripathy, learned counsel for contesting opposite party no.1-OSMCL and learned Addl. Govt. Advocate for the State opposite party no.2 and perused the records. Pleadings between contesting parties have been exchanged and with the consent of learned counsel for the parties, this writ petition is being disposed of at the admission stage.

3. The submission of learned counsel for the petitioner is that though the signature in the scanned copy of the affidavit submitted by the petitioner in Format T5 may not be visible, but as the hard copy of the same had already been furnished, the technical bid of the petitioner could not have been rejected on this technical ground of non-visibility of the signature of the petitioner on the uploaded affidavit in Format-T5. It is contended that it was the duty of the Corporation to have verified the uploaded affidavit with the hard copy of the affidavit, wherein the signature of the authorised person was there. It is further submitted that in the counter affidavit, the opposite party-Corporation has come up with a new case that the hard copy did not bear the manual signature of the authorised signatory, but only facsimile/stamp signature was there, and hence the same has not been considered as authentic. It is contended that no fresh ground could not have been taken in the counter affidavit which was not taken in the order dated 09.02.2016. It is further submitted that the signature in the scanned copy of the affidavit in Format-T5 was not fundamental or material to reject the tender document without calling for explanation from the petitioner.

4. Per contra, Sri B.P. Tripathy, learned counsel for the contesting opposite party-OSMCL has submitted that the signature on scanned copy of the affidavit in Format-T5 was a necessary document which was required to be uploaded along with the signature and if the affidavit, which was uploaded, was not even signed by the authorised signatory, the same was not to be considered and consequently the tender of the petitioner has rightly been rejected. It is submitted that the ground taken in the counter affidavit that the signature in the hard copy of the affidavit was not manual but facsimile/stamp signature, was in addition to the ground which had been taken in the order dated 09.02.2016, as the same came to the knowledge of the Corporation after the rejection order was passed, when the papers were further looked into and it was found that the signature was not manual. He, however, does not place much reliance on the said contention raised in the counter affidavit and states the same has been made only by way of abundant precaution.

5. In the tender document, Format-T5 has been given (at page-96 of the writ petition). The instructions to the bidders provided with the tender call notice specifies what is to be contained in the bid documents to be submitted by the bidders and it also gives the format for bidders for submission of bid (technical bid). In the Important Notes (at page-91 of the writ petition), which is the part of the tender document, the bidder has to upload all the documents as per checklist-T1 (at page-89 of the writ petition) and at serial no.7 thereof "Format-T5" (Declaration Form) is included. The document "Format-T5", which has been uploaded by the petitioner, has been filed at page nos.123 and 124 of the writ petition. In the said document, which is dated 16.01.2016, the space for signature of the bidder has been provided just above the date, but there is no signature and the same remains blank. Learned counsel for the petitioner also does not dispute this position and has only contended that the hard copy of the said document contains the facsimile/stamp signature of the authorised signatory of the petitioner company.

6. Such being the position, it can easily be concluded that the uploaded document in Format-T5 did not contain the signature of the authorised signatory. The same being a necessary condition in the tender call notice and having not been fulfilled by the petitioner, the rejection of technical bid of the petitioner cannot be faulted with. Assigning reason is sine qua non for deciding the matter in proper perspective. By assigning reasons the technical bid of the petitioner has been rejected.

7. The apex Court held in State of Bombay v. K.P. Krishnan, AIR 1960 SC 1223 [LQ/SC/1960/124] ; Durgadas v. Union of India, AIR 1966 SC 1078 [LQ/SC/1965/314] ; Ram Distillery v. Company Law Board, AIR 1970 SC 1789 [LQ/SC/1969/314] and Pratap Singh v. State of Punjab, AIR 1964 SC 72 [LQ/SC/1963/209] that while exercising its discretionary powers, the authority must apply its mind to relevant materials and exclude from consideration the matter which is extraneous and not germane to the object.

Further, in Congreve v. Home Officer, (1976) 1 All ER 697 & Secretary of State for Education and Science v. Temeside Metropolitan Borough Council, (1976) 3 All ER 665 HL, it has been held that the Court may examine, by judicial review, the reasons advanced in support of exercise of discretion and misuse of discretion in the presence of good reasons to support a discretion.

Applying the said principle as discussed above, the authority has applied its mind to relevant materials and exclude from consideration the matter which is extraneous and not germane to the object. In addition to same, when the Court examined the reasons in support of exercise of power by the authority, this Court is of the considered view that the authority has considered all the relevant materials available on record. Therefore, there is no justifiable reason to interfere with the same in exercise of power of judicial review.

8. With regard to the contention that further reason for rejection of tender of the petitioner as has been given in the counter affidavit, is of no consequence, we would not like to deal with the question as to whether in the facts of the present case, it was mandatory for the petitioner to have the manual signature of the authorised signatory on the affidavit or would the facsimile/stamp signature be sufficient. We may only observe that the said document had to be notarized and normally it is expected that the person signing the document would be present before the notary and the same would be signed by him. However, since we are not going into such question and only considering the correctness of the order dated 09.02.2016 and not the explanation given in the counter affidavit, we are ignoring the same and, since admittedly a condition in the tender document has not been complied with by the petitioner, details of which have also been given herein above, we are of the firm view that the order dated 09.02.2016, in so far as it relates to rejection of the bid of the petitioner, is justified in law.

9. The contention of learned counsel for the petitioner, that the representation of the petitioner dated 23.02.2016 has not been decided, is of no consequence, as we have already considered such question raised in the objection/representation of the petitioner.

10. The writ petition, being devoid of merits, is dismissed. No order as to cost.