Page No.# 1/7 GAHC010209702025 2026:GAU-AS:1098 THE GAUHATI HIGH COURT (HIGH COURT OF ASSAM, NAGALAND, MIZORAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH) Case No. : WP(C)/5528/2025 CHAN MIAH S/O- LATE MOHAMMAD ALI PRAMANIK, VILL.- BIRSING PART-III, P.O. AND P.S. FAKIRGANJ, DIST. DHUBRI, ASSAM, PIN- 783330. VERSUS THE STATE OF ASSAM AND 6 ORS REPRESENTED BY THE COMMISSIONER AND SECRETARY, GOVERNMENT OF ASSAM, PANCHAYAT AND RURAL DEVELOPMENT, GUWAHATI. 2:ZILA PARISHAD DHUBRI REPRESENTED BY THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER GURU TEGH BAHADUR ROAD WARD NO.1 BORO BAZAR DHUBRI DISTRICT- DHUBRI- 783301. 3:BIRSING JARUA ANCHALIK PANCHAYAT REPRESENTED BY THE PRESIDENT DHUBRI DISTRICT-DHUBRI ASSAM 4:BLOCK DEVELOPMENT OFFICER BIRSING JARUA DEVELOPMENT BLOCK DHUBRI DISTRICT-DHUBRI ASSAM 5:BIRSING GAON PANCHAYAT Page No.# 2/7 REPRESENTED BY THE PRESIDENT VILLAGE- BIRSING PART-I PO AND PS-FAKIRGANJ DISTRICT-DHUBRI PIN-783330. 6:SECRETARY BIRSING GAON PANCHAYAT VILLAGE- BIRSING PART-I PO AND PS-FAKIRGANJ DISTRICT-DHUBRI PIN-783330. 7:MD. SUJAB ALI SON OF MAJER ALI VILLAGE -BIRSING PART-II PS- FAKIRGANJ DISTRICT-DHUBRI PIN-783330 Advocate for the Petitioner : MR. K K DEY, MR V K BAROOAH Advocate for the Respondent : SC, P AND R.D., FOR CAVEATOR,MR S KHOUND,MR D J MEDHI B E F O R E Hon’ble MR. JUSTICE SANJAY KUMAR MEDHI Advocate for the petitioner : Shri K.K. Dey, Advocate. Advocate for the respondents : Shri S. Dutta, S.C., P&R.D. Deptt., Shri S. Khound, Advocate, R/7 & Ms. M.D. Bora, S.C., IWT. Date on which judgment is : NA Reserved. Date of pronouncement of : 29.01.2026. Judgment. Whether the pronouncement : NA. Page No.# 3/7 is of the operative part of the judgment? Whether the full judgment : Yes. has been pronounced? JUDGMENT & ORDER (Oral) Heard Shri K.K. Dey, learned counsel for the petitioner. Also heard Shri S. Dutta, learned Standing Counsel, P&RD Department, Assam as well as Shri S. Khound, learned counsel for the respondent no. 7. Though the Inland Water Transport Department is not a party respondent in this petition, for a complete resolution of the lis involved, on a request of this Court, Ms. M.D. Bora, learned Standing Counsel, IWT has appeared and assisted this Court. Pleadings have been exchanged. 2. The challenge in this writ petition is with regard to the rejection of the bid of the petitioner which he had submitted for settlement of the Birsing Jogomaya Ghat of River Brahmaputra in the district of Dhubri. As per the projected case, the Birsing Gaon Panchayat had issued an NIT on 03.06.2025 for settlement of the aforesaid Ghat in which, the petitioner had participated. It is contended that the bid which he had offered at Rs. 99,000/- was identical to the bid of the respondent no. 7. According to the petitioner, there is a prescription in the Tender Conditions that, in the event more than one financial bid is found to be identical, recourse of drawing of lots has to be taken which was not done and the settlement was made in favour of the respondent no. 7. 3. Shri Dey, learned counsel for the petitioner has drawn the attention of this Court to Clause 14(a) of the NIT which prescribes that in case the same tender value is submitted by more than one bidder, the same would be settled by holding a lottery Page No.# 4/7 amongst the bidders. He has submitted that the aforesaid condition has been blatantly violated and the settlement has been made in favour of the respondent no. 7 in an arbitrary manner. 4. On the other hand, Shri Dutta, learned Standing Counsel, P&RD, by drawing the attention of this Court to the affidavit-in-opposition filed on 24.10.2025 has submitted that the projection on facts made by the petitioner is not correct. He has submitted that the recourse to the provision of Clause 14(a) of the NIT would be taken only when the financial bids of two valid bidders are found to be identical. In the instant case, however, the bid of the petitioner was found to be defective on more than one count. He has submitted that the petitioner did not submit the Police Verification Report (PVR) and duly attested passport photo. Further, the registration certificate of the petitioner was not legible and the boat insurance was also not furnished by the petitioner. 5. In this regard, he has drawn the attention of this Court to the Comparative Statement of the respective bidders which have been enclosed as Annexure-6 to the affidavit-in-opposition filed on 23.10.2025. He has submitted that there is a clear noting in the consideration of the bid of the petitioner that the same was rejected due to insufficient documents. He has also drawn the attention of this Court to the Remark column which contains certain reasons of such rejection. 6. Shri Khound, learned counsel for the respondent no. 7, while endorsing the submission of the learned Standing Counsel, has additionally submitted that the settlement has been rightly given to his client inasmuch, as the aspect of taking recourse to Clause 14 of the NIT would not arise in the instant case. 7. Shri Dey, learned counsel for the petitioner, in his rejoinder, has submitted that Page No.# 5/7 after exchange of affidavits, it was revealed that the respondent no. 7 was also not qualified in terms of Clause 36 of the NIT. He has submitted that as per the aforesaid clause, a bidder is required to be a registered owner of the boat and in the instant case, it is not in dispute that the boat of the respondent no. 7 was taken on hire. 8. The rival submissions have been duly considered and the materials placed before this Court have carefully been examined. 9. The primary challenge instituted in this writ petition is against the order dated 20.08.2025 issued by the respondent no. 6 whereby the settlement of the Ghat in question was given to the respondent no. 7. From the pleaded case, the basis of the challenge was upon Clause 14 wherein, there is a requirement to take recourse to draw of lots when the financial bids of more than one bidder are identical. It appears that the financial bid offered by the petitioner and the respondent no. 7 is the same. However, it transpires that the bid of the petitioner was rejected which is reflected from the comparative statement enclosed to the affidavit-in-opposition. Such rejection was because of non-fulfillment of certain requirements and the same, as such is not the subject matter of challenge. The learned counsel for the petitioner has also fairly submitted that the grounds for such rejection are based on records and the same can be verified only from the records. As mentioned above, the grounds, as elucidated in the affidavit-in-opposition as well as from the comparative statement are that the petitioner did not have the requisite documents required for consideration of the bids. The learned Standing Counsel has highlighted four defects which have been mentioned above. 10. At this stage, this Court is also required to consider the submissions made by Shri Dey, learned counsel for the petitioner that the bid of the respondent no. 7 is also defective being in violation of the requirement of Clause 36. There is no dispute in law Page No.# 6/7 that averments made in a reply-affidavit can also be treated to be a part of the pleadings. In this regard, one may gainfully refer to the decision of the Hon’ble Supreme Court in the case of Sri-La-Sri Subramania Desika Gnanasambanda Pandarasannidi Vs. State of Madras & Anr., reported in AIR 1965 SC 1578, the relevant observations being extracted below: “17. That takes us to the consideration of the question as to whether the two reasons given by the High Court in support of this decision are valid. The first reason, as we have already indicated, is that the High Court thought that the plea in question had not been raised by the appellant in his writ petition. This reason is no doubt, technically right in the sense that this plea was not mentioned in the first affidavit filed by the appellant in support of his petition; but in the affidavit-in- rejoinder filed by the appellant this plea has been expressly taken. This is not disputed by Mr. Chetty, and so, when the matter was argued before the High Court, the respondents had full notice of the fact that one of the grounds on which the appellant challenged the validity of the impugned Order was that he had not been given a chance to show cause why the said notification should not be issued. We are, therefore, satisfied that the High Court was in error in assuming that the ground in question had not been taken at any stage by the appellant before the matter was argued before the High Court.” 11. However, this Court is of the opinion that when the petitioner has failed to make a specific challenge with regard to the aspect of rejection of his bid, the aforesaid question of deciding the legitimacy of the bid of the respondent no. 7 may not arise in the present case. 12. In the conspectus of the aforesaid discussions, this Court is of the opinion that no case for interference is made out and accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed. This Court, however, clarifies that the issue as to whether it is mandatory for a bidder Page No.# 7/7 to be the registered owner of a boat or a registered boat can be hired by a bidder is left open to be decided in an appropriate case. JUDGE Comparing Assistant