TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (9) TMI 1505
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....s tender was accepted for an amount of Rs. 3,92,70,000/-. 2. Ext. P1 was the Notice Inviting Tender (for short 'NIT') for the said work. Interpretation of Clause 3.3.3 in the said NIT is called for, in this writ petition. For the purpose of easier comprehension the said Clause is extracted as below:- "3.3.3. The rates quoted by the Bidder shall include cost of all materials and conveyance, labour charges, hire charges of plant and machinery, overheads and all incidental charges for execution of the contract. The rate quoted shall also include all statutory taxes and other mandatory remittances payable by the contractor as per existing tax systems and government orders which are applicable to the contract, except Goods and service....
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....es will be given extra. Thus, for the agreements executed prior to the circular date in reference (3), the contractors are not entitled to obtain any additional claim by way of any other tax including GST." 4. In this writ petition while impugning Ext. P9, petitioner claims for a declaration that the terms of Ext. P1 govern the contract, apart from a direction to the respondents to clear all the bills raised by the petitioner. The contention raised by the petitioner is that, when the respondents put forth Ext. P1 tender, inviting bids to be submitted without including GST, they cannot thereafter turn around and canvas the proposition that the bids ought to have included the GST component. 5. The 3rd respondent has filed a counter affida....
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.... G. on behalf of respondents 2 and 3. 7. The notice inviting tender produced as Ext. P1 is specific to the work in question. The mind of the employer in a contract is made evident through the notice inviting tender. Though the notice inviting tender is not by itself binding upon the parties, when the said document is acted upon by another party to the contract there arises certain binding obligations, based purely upon the terms specified in Ext. P1. De hors what happened before or after, the terms in Ext. P1 are required to be abided with. The bidders cannot vary or detract from the terms specified in that document. Viewed in the above perspective, irrespective of the Government order issued as G.O. (P) No. 2/2018/PWD dated 27.01.2018, if....
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....ords, even the BoQ did not contemplate the goods and service tax to be included as part of the bid to be submitted by the contractor. This Court also bears in mind that the respondents have no case that the BoQ template provided by them was wrong. 11. In this context it is apposite to refer to the judgment cited by the learned counsel for the petitioner in Writ Appeal No. 445 of 2018 dated 18.12.2019. The said decision is reported as C.A. George V. State of Kerala and Others [AIR 2021 NOC 77]. Though the situation in the abovesaid case was slightly different, the issue considered by the Court was whether the petitioner in that case was called upon to give the bid amount without the taxes or as exclusive of the taxes. After referring to the....
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.... the same is also answered by the Division Bench of this Court, in the case of C.A. George (supra) where this Court had held in Paragraph 13 thus:- "13. Though learned Government Pleader points out that all other contractors have quoted the rates inclusive of taxes, we do not think that we should venture to consider the approach taken by other contractors. In the case on hand, this particular contractor had made a quote based on the tender document supplied to him and when in the BOQ, he is expected to give the rate for each item and he was called upon to give the rate "without taxes", he could only give a rate without taxes. His experience in the filed and the approach of the PWD authorities are irrelevant matters in considering a specif....