Item No.- 144 13.08.2026 Court No. 25 Rohan In the High Court at Calcutta Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side WPA 20287 of 2025 With I.A. No.: CAN 1 of 2025 Awadh Security Services Versus Union of India & Ors. Mr. Sudipta Sarkar Ms. Tithi Mandal … for the Petitioner Mr. Rivu Dutta Mr. Subrata Santra … for the Respondent No. 1 to 4 Mr. Ayan Poddar Ms. Binsy Susan Mr. Akshay Sharma Ms. Palak Kaushal Mr. Debditya Saha Ms. Anjali Shaw … for the Respondent No. 5 1. The petitioner has filed the present writ application being aggrieved and dissatisfied with the communications dated 25th July, 2025 and 29th July, 2025. 2. The contention of the petitioner in the present writ application is that on 30th December, 2024, the respondent authorities have published a notice inviting tender for grant of contract for engaging nine (09) numbers of sweepers (un-skilled) with one (01) number of Supervisor for carrying out work with cleaning material in the Mercantile Marine Department, Kolkata 2 through GeM. Portal. The petitioner has participated in the said tender and he being the successful bidder, on 4th March, 2025, the respondent authorities have issued work order in favour of the petitioner. During the existence of the contract, on 15th July, 2025, the respondent authorities have issued a show cause notice to the petitioner on the allegation of delayed disbursement of wages, non-supply of cleaning materials, non-compliance in EPF contributions and unethical collection of money from the deployed staff. On receipt of the said show cause notice, the petitioner has submitted reply to the said show cause notice on 18th July, 2025. On receipt of the show cause notice, the competent authorities, after considering the reply of the petitioner, decided to take action against the petitioner on the said allegations. The same was also intimated to the Chairman of the GeM and placed the same in the dashboard of the GeM Portal. Subsequently, on 29th August, 2025, the competent authorities have taken a decision for cancellation of the contract with effect from 1st September, 2025 by an order dated 29th August, 2025. 3. The petitioner has filed the present writ application on two grounds; (i) illegal termination and (ii) illegal blacklist of the petitioner firm. 4. At the time of hearing, the respondents have categorically submitted before this Court, on 3 instructions, that no blacklisting order has been passed against the petitioner. Thus, there is no question of going any further to decide whether the blacklisting is correct or not. 5. Now, the issue whether the cancellation of the tender of the petitioner is sustainable under law. The respondent authorities, in the show cause notice, have categorically informed the petitioner with regard to the allegation of the delayed disbursement of wages, non- supply of cleaning materials, non-compliance of EPF contribution and unethical collection of money from the deployed staff. The petitioner in the reply has stated with regard to delayed disbursement of wages that the delay in payment to the contract workers was due to non-receipt of the payments by the petitioner from the principal employer and the petitioner, being a Micro-MSME unit and was suffering from severe financial hardship due to which it could not make the payment to the contract workers. As regards to non- supply of cleaning materials, the petitioner has stated that he has supplied the adequate materials to the authorities in terms of the work order issued to the petitioner. As regards to non-compliance of EPF contributions, it is the case of the petitioner that where the monthly pay of a member exceeds Rs. 15,000/- the contribution payable by him and in respect of him by the employer, shall be limited to the amounts payable 4 on a monthly pay of Rs. 15,000/- including dearness allowance, retaining allowance, cash value of food concession and the petitioner will reconcile records and discharge any shortfalls. 6. It is the allegation against the petitioner that the petitioner has forcefully collected Rs. 4,000/- per month from each of the employee under the guise of registration charges but in reply to the said allegation, the petitioner stated that the allegation is totally false and they have not collected any amount from the contract workers. 7. By taking into consideration of the reply of the petitioner, the authorities have come to the conclusion that the reply filed by the petitioner is not satisfactory. The authorities have come to the conclusion that the materials supplied by the petitioner are not as per the GeM contract on the basis of which, the supply order was issued to the petitioner. 8. It is also taken into consideration by the authorities that with regard to illegal charging of Rs. 4,000/- per month, during the enquiry, the Director had answered that it is better, Principal employer (MMD, Kolkata) not to inquire about these as housekeeping staff are under the sole authority of service provider and upon pressing the issue, they admitted that money have been charged as registration fee, all the 5 conversation/discussion were recorded and they are safely placed in the records. Considering all the reply filed by the petitioner, the authorities have come to the conclusion that the contract of the petitioner is liable to be terminated and accordingly, by communication dated 29th August, 2025, the contract has been cancelled. 9. Considering the above, this Court finds that there are four allegations against the petitioner. The petitioner was given a proper opportunity of hearing. The petitioner has submitted the show cause reply. In the show cause reply, the petitioner only denied with regard to the second charges leveled against the petitioner but has admitted other charges. The authorities have considered the same and find that the reply submitted by the petitioner is not satisfactory and the allegations are serious in nature. Accordingly, the authorities have taken the decision for cancellation of the tender. Thus, this Court does not find any illegality in the impugned order. 10. Accordingly, WPA 20287 of 2025 is dismissed and the connected application being CAN 1 of 2025 is also disposed of. 11. However, it is made clear that this Court has only considered with regard to the order of termination and this Court has not gone into the further entitlement of 6 the petitioner. The petitioner is at liberty to make proper prayer before the appropriate authority for its entitlement and if any request is made by the petitioner for its entitlement, the authority will take decision in accordance with law. 12. All parties shall act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. 13. Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be given to the parties upon compliance with all requisite formalities. (Krishna Rao, J.)