In M/s Vivid Offset through its partner Mr. Shailesh Kumar Singh vs. The State of Bihar through Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar, & Ors.(2025), Patna High Court's Division Bench of Chief Justice Vipul M. Pancholi and Justice Partha Sarthy delivered a 48-page long judgment dated August 13, 2025. This is the 20th judgement by Justice Pancholi as chief justice. Justice Pancholi concluded:"we are not inclined to interfere with the impugned orders passed by the respondent authorities, while exercising powers under Article- 226 of the Constitution of India. 34. Accordingly, all these writ petitions stand dismissed"
Justice Pancholi observed:"it cannot be said that the respondents have passed the impugned orders without issuing the show cause notice. Further, in the facts and circumstances of the present cases, the petitioners have to supply the books for Class-I to Class-VIII within the stipulated time and before the academic year starts and, therefore, time is the essence of contract. Further, as observed hereinabove, out of 57 printers, except the present petitioners, all the other printers have supplied 100% or more than 86% books within the stipulated time. Thus, looking to the facts and circumstances of the present cases, it can be said that exercise of powers under Clause-12(A) of the General Condition of Tender by the respondent cannot be termed as ‘arbitrary’. From the impugned orders, it cannot be said that there is non-application of mind on the part of the respondent authorities while passing the said orders. Further, it is well settled that this Court cannot sit in appeal over the order passed by the respondent authority in contract matters and the scope of judicial review in such type of cases is very limited. We are of the view that the decisions upon which reliance has been placed by the learned advocates for the petitioners would not render any assistance to them in the aforesaid facts and circumstances of the case."
The petitioners' counsel had relied on Supreme Court's decisions in All India Groundnut Syndicate Ltd. vs. Commissioner of Income Tax, Bombay City, reported in 1953 SCC OnLine Bom 90, Isolators And Isolators though its proprietor Sandhya Mishra vs. Madhya Pradesh Madhya Kshetra Vidyut Vitran Company Limited And Another reported in (2023) 8 SCC 607, Subodh Executive Officer & Ors. reported in 2024 SCC OnLine SC 1682, Raghunath Thakur v. State of Bihar, (1989) 1 SCC 229, Erusian Equipment & Chemicals Ltd. vs. State of W.B., (1975) 1 SCC 70, Nasir Ahmad vs. Custodian (Evacuee Property), (1980) 3 SCC 1, UMC Technologies (P) Ltd. v. Food Corpn. of India, (2021) 2 SCC 551, Kranti Associates [(2010) 9 SCC 496: (2010) 3 SCC (Civ) 852], Khem Chand vs. Union of India [AIR 1958 SC 300], Haryana Financial Corpn. vs. Kailash Chandra Ahuja [(2008) 9 SCC 31 : (2008) 2 SCC (L&S) 789], B. Karunakar [ECIL v. B. Karunakar, (1993) 4 SCC 727: 1993 SCC (L&S) 1184 : (1993) 25 ATC 704], Gorkha Security Services vs. Government (NCT of Delhi) & Ors. reported in (2014) 9 SCC 105 and Oryx Fisheries Private Limited vs. Union of India & Ors. reported in (2010) 13 SCC 427.
The petition was heard as part of the batch of writ petitions filed by the petitioners challenging the order of blacklisting passed by the respondent against respective petitioners for a period of one year. The issue involved in these petitions were similar and the same was disposed of by a common judgment.
The Bihar State Text Book Publishing Corporation Limited (Corporation) had issued E notice inviting tender (NIT) from eligible printers for printing and supply of Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) text books for Class-I to Class-VIII Class/ Standardwise, Districtwise and Languagewise under SSA for the academic year 2025-2026 which will be delivered to 548 Block Resources Centres in 38 districts within the State of Bihar. The petitioner had participated in the said NIT and was declared successful. The work order dated November 14, 2024 for printing, binding, set making and supply of text book of Hindi, Urdu and mixed medium under Package-52 for Class-VI in the districts of Araria, Banka and West Champaran was issued. Similarly, another work order for Package-58 for Class-VII in the districts of Begusarai, Samastipur and Sheohar was also issued in favour of the petitioner.
It was the case of the petitioner that the respondents had finally approved the dummy/proof of books and intimated the final date of approval of books on 03.12.2024. Similarly, on 06.12.2024, the Managing Director, Bihar State Text Book Publishing Corporation Ltd, the respondent No. 6 had approved the books of other printers. Now, it is the case of the petitioner that the concerned respondent, from time to time, changed the cover page, design and size of books and, therefore, various correspondences took place between the parties. It was stated that final date of approval of books was 27.12.2024 and as per Clause-8.1 of the tender document, printers shall have to deliver the books to concerned Blocks within 105 days from the date of final approval of dummy/proof and as per Clause-12(A) (i) of the tender document, no penalty would be levied till 15 days from completion of 105 days. Thus, the printers shall have to deliver the books at the destination within 120 days of approval by respondent No. 6.
Bihar State Text Book Publishing Corporation Ltd, the Respondent No. 5 had issued a show cause notice on 17.02.2025 to the concerned printers in light of Clause-8 Part-II Note (iii). It was mentioned therein that Corporation reserves its right to withdraw upto 50% of the contract/work order, if the printer did not complete 50% of quantum of total contract on 75th day from the date of approval of final proof reading without issuing any prior notice. It was also the case of the petitioner that on 05.03.2025 respondent No. 5 had directed the petitioner to print and supply 5 extra books of Urdu/mixed medium along with diary Hindi medium. Thereafter, respondent No. 5 issued show cause notice dated 05.03.2025 and asked to show cause for not delivering 50% books of total contract. Immediately thereafter, on 18.03.2025 respondent No. 5 published a chart along with percentage of delivery of books and convened a meeting of printers with direction to appear with up-to-date progress report. Thereafter, once again on 25.03.2025 respondent No. 5 issued show cause notice to the petitioner about non-supplying the books on time. The petitioner had also stated that on 21.04.2025, respondent No. 5 had issued show cause to the petitioner for initiation of process for blacklisting the petitioner, to which the petitioner submitted reply on 24.04.2025. Thereafter, on 30.04.2025 respondent No. 5 issued 2nd show cause notice to the petitioner for blacklisting, to which the petitioner gave reply. The grievance of the petitioner is that respondent No. 5 had blacklisted the petitioner vide order dated18.06.2025 for a period of one year.
As a consequence, the petitioner filed the petition under Article-226 of the Constitution of India in which the petitioner had prayed for quashing of the order dated 18.06.2025, passed by respondent No. 5 by which the petitioner was blacklisted for a period of one year. He had also prayed that the respondents be directed to permit the petitioner to take part in the new tender published online vide tender Notice No. 620 dated 05.06.2025 during pendency of the writ petition.
Notably, the Court referred to David Shapiro in Defence of Judicial Candor (1987), Harvard Law Review, 731-37. and doctrine of fairness in decision-making, as a component of human rights which was considered part of Strasbourg Jurisprudence. It drew on decision in Ruiz Torija vs. Spain [(1994) 19 EHRR 553], EHRR at p. 562, para 29 and Anya vs. University of Oxford [2001 EWCA Civ 405 : 2001 ICR 847 (CA)] , wherein the Court had referred to Article 6 of the European Convention of Human Rights which requires, ‘adequate and intelligent reasons must be given for judicial decisions’.
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