2026:HHC:8602 Whether the reporters of the local papers may be allowed to see the Judgment? Yes IN THE HIGH COURT OF HIMACHAL PRADESH, SHIMLA CWP No.1072 of 2026 a/w CWP Nos.1069 & 1074 of 2026 Reserved on: 05.03.2026 Date of decision: 24.03.2026 1. CWP No.1072 of 2026 Ramesh Chand. ...Petitioner. Versus Himachal Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation Limited & Ors. …Respondents. 2. CWP No.1069 of 2026 Ramesh Chand. ...Petitioner. Versus Himachal Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation Limited & Ors. …Respondents. 3. CWP No.1074 of 2026 Ramesh Chand. ...Petitioner. Versus Himachal Pradesh State Forest Development Corporation Limited & Ors. …Respondents. Coram Hon’ble Mr. Justice Vivek Singh Thakur, Judge. Hon’ble Mr. Justice Ranjan Sharma, Judge. Whether approved for reporting? For the petitioner : Mr. Nitin Thakur, Advocate, in all petitions. For the respondent(s) : Ms. Kiran Dhiman, Advocate, for respondent No.1 & 2-HP State Forest Development Corp. Ltd. In all petitions. : None for private respondent No.3 in all petitions. -2- 2026:HHC:8602 Vivek Singh Thakur, Judge These petitions, involving common questions of law and fact, are being decided by this common judgment. 2. Petitioner is an “A” Class Government Contractor. Respondent-HP State Forest Development Corporation Limited (‘Corporation’) issued a tender inviting bids for work of felling conversion, manual carriage, tractor carriage upto road side depot and further truck TT transport for different lots in District Hamirpur. The terms and conditions of the tender have been appended with in all writ petitions as Annexure P-1. 3. CWP No.1072 of 2026 is related to Lot No.30/2025- 26/Chil/BSR; CWP No.1069 of 2026 is related to Lot No.22/2025- 26/Chil/BSR; and CWP No.1074 of 2026 is related to Lot No.65/2025- 26/Chil/Khair/HMR. 4. Petitioner, along with others, participated in the tender process. According to the petitioner, he was lowest bidder (‘L-1’) for quoting lowest rates. However, respondent No.2 awarded the contract and entered into agreements with respective private respondents, i.e. respondent No.3-Harbans Lal in CWP No.1072 of 2026, respondent No.3-Harbans Lal in CWP No.1069 of 2026 and respondent No.3- Ashok Kumar in CWP No.1074 of 2026. -3- 2026:HHC:8602 5. According to the petitioner, despite making efforts, including approaching respondent No.2, no reason was communicated to the petitioner for not considering his bid despite being L-1, as no reason was uploaded/communicated for not considering the petitioner. 6. Thereafter, the petitioner with great difficulty obtained information/documents under Right to Information Act, 2005, only with respect to Lot No.30. As per record received under RTI information, it is evident that petitioner had quoted lesser rates than the private respondents in these petitions, but for the reasons best known to respondent-Corporation work was awarded to respondent No.3 in respective petition, despite the fact that rates quoted by respondent No.3 in respective petition were on higher side. Copy of the RTI information has been appended along with petition as Annexure P-2 in all petitions. 7. Upon inquiry, petitioner came to know that he had been ousted for not submitting his individual GST number. According to the petitioner, he had submitted GST number of his partnership firm, i.e. Shyamak Enterprises, which had been accepted in the past. Further that there was no specific condition that individual’s personal GST number had to be submitted by the persons submitting the bid. Copy of the GST documents submitted by the petitioner have been placed on record as Annexure P-3 in all petitions. -4- 2026:HHC:8602 8. It is the case of the petitioner that petitioner was one of the partners in the firm-Shyamak Enterprises, GST number of which was submitted by him and it was sufficient for input credit. Further that respondent-Corporation has duly accepted the GST number of others, who had also uploaded/given the same of their firm/partnership. In aforesaid circumstances, it has been claimed by the petitioner that acts of omission and commission on part of respondent-Corporation are arbitrary, mala fide and discriminatory. 9. In the aforesaid facts and circumstances, in all petitions, prayer has been made to quash and set aside awards made in favour of respondent No.3 in respective petition with respect to aforesaid Lot Nos.30, 22 & 65 with further prayer for quashing and setting aside the agreements entered into between respondent No.2 and respondent(s) Nos.3 in respective petition and for nullifying letter dated 31.12.2025. Prayer has also been made to award the work of these lots to the petitioner with directions to respondent No.2 to enter into agreement with the petitioner by accepting the GST number submitted by him. 10. It is admitted case of the petitioner that he had uploaded the GST number of partnership firm. Clause 59 of the tender prescribed the documents, required to be uploaded, which reads as under:- “59. Document required to be upload in case of e-tender/submitted in case of offline tender along with tender from before scheduled date and time of tender. (a) Registration Copy -5- 2026:HHC:8602 (b) EMD in the form FDR duly pledged in favour of concerned (DM) payable at Divisional Headquarter of MD, HPSFDC Ltd. payable at Shimla. (c) Tender Fees in the form of DD/Cash receipt in favour of DM concerned or MD, HPSFDC Ltd. Shimla. (d) GST No. (e) PAN. (f) EPF (as per tender condition). (g) Labour license/Affidavit (as applicable). (h) Prescribed Performa for time limit of work. (i) Work pendency certificate” 11. During pendency of the petition, petitioner has also placed on record information by filing an application, claiming that in the past, bids of individuals, who had not submitted their individual GST numbers, were accepted. Details of such persons read as under:- Name Trade Name Mandeep Thakur M/s Pratap Singh and Sons Onkar Singh M/s Jamwal Traders Sunil Kumar Shiv Durge Traders Sunil Kumar Shri Ganesh Trading 12. In response to the petitions, participation of the petitioner in the tender process has been admitted with submissions that documents submitted by the petitioner were not in consonance with Condition No.59 of the tender. It has been submitted that in one petition personal GST number uploaded by the petitioner was not found to be activated in the bidders’ names, i.e. Ramesh Chand, and therefore, his bid was not admitted and consequently, on account of non-admission -6- 2026:HHC:8602 of bid of the petitioner, the same was not considered. It has been further submitted that petitioner had submitted his bid/tender form in his individual capacity and not in the name of any partnership firm, but he failed to furnish his valid activated personal GST number. It has been further submitted that entire process, from receipt of e-tender/offline tender, was uploaded on the e-portal of the respondent-Corporation and was always available to the general public, including the petitioner. 13. The documents placed on record with the writ petitions by the petitioner, as well as documents produced by the respondent- Corporation during the course of the hearing, indicate that in Lot Nos.22 and 30, the petitioner had submitted GST number of a partnership firm, whereas in Lot No.65, he had submitted GST number of M/s Sarovar Bar & Restaurant Bani, a proprietorship concern of the petitioner- Ramesh Chand. Upon verification of GST number submitted in Lot No.65, it was found to be not activated, whereas in Lot Nos.22 and 30, the GST number furnished by the petitioner was related to Shyamak Enterprises, which is a partnership firm. 14. Partnership firm is a separate legal entity and GST number of a partnership firm, at any stretch of imagination, cannot be treated as personal GST number of an individual. It is a matter of common sense that for submitting a bid, GST number required to be submitted in terms of Condition No.59 of the terms and conditions of the tender, personal GST number of the applicant/participating person/firm is -7- 2026:HHC:8602 required to be submitted. In case of Lot No.65, GST number of sole proprietor concern, submitted by the petitioner, was found to be not activated, whereas in remaining two cases, no personal or sole proprietor GST number of the petitioner was uploaded, rather, GST number of a firm was uploaded, which was not a valid document for the purpose of submitting a bid in an individual capacity. 15. With respect to the persons whose details have been placed on record along with the application, filed by the petitioner, during the pendency of the petitions, the respondent–Corporation has filed a reply along with documents showing the GST registration numbers of these persons. In the cases of Mandeep Thakur, Onkar Singh, Sunil Kumar (Proprietor, Shiv Durge Traders, r/o Village Panyali, Naduan, District Hamirpur) and Sunil Kumar (Proprietor, Shri Ganesh Trading, r/o 34/60, VPO Sathwin, Barsar, District Hamirpur), they had submitted the GST numbers of their sole proprietorship concerns indicated against their names in the application. None of these persons had submitted GST numbers of any partnership firm. They had applied in their individual capacities and had submitted the GST numbers of the sole proprietorship concerns being run by them. 16. In the aforesaid circumstances, we are of the considered opinion that petitioner had failed to upload complete documents at the time of submission of his bid in these cases, as details of the GST numbers furnished by him were either not active or belonging to a -8- 2026:HHC:8602 partnership firm, and therefore, for want of complete documents on record, the respondent-Corporation has rightly not considered the bid of the petitioner. 17. We are of the considered opinion that no case of arbitrariness or mala fide is made out and there is no merit in these petitions. 18. Accordingly, these petitions are dismissed in above terms, so also the pending miscellaneous application(s), if any. (Vivek Singh Thakur) Judge (Ranjan Sharma) Judge. 24th March, 2026 (Pardeep)