CALLA, J. ( 1 ) MR. Pranav G. Desai, learned Counsel, waives service of Rule for respondent No. 1 and Mr. A. C. Gandhi, learned Counsel, waives service of rule for respondents Nos. 2 and 3. ( 2 ) ON the request of the parties and looking to the urgency of the matter, the case was taken up for final disposal today. ( 3 ) HEARD learned Counsel. ( 4 ) THIS Special Civil Application has been filed by the petitioner challenging the action of the respondent No. 1 in granting a contract for preparation of the Voters list of Municipal Corporation, Surat to respondents Nos. 2 and 3 for the ensuing municipal elections, which are to be held after February, 1995 as given out by the learned Counsel for the Municipal Corporation, Surat. The petitioner herein has come with a grievance that the said contract has been given by the Municipal Corporation, surat to respondents Nos. 2 and 3 for preparation of the Voters list without issuing any notice inviting tenders for the year 1995 and this action of the Municipal corporation is violative of Art. 14 of the Constitution of India as also Rule 2 of chapter V of Schedule A of the Bombay Provincial Municipal Corporations Act, 1949 (hereinafter referred to as the B. P. M. C. Act" for short ). It has been argued by the learned Counsel for the petitioner that at no point of time any notice inviting tenders was issued for the job in question for the year 1995 and straightway the contract was given to respondents Nos. 2 and 3 and for that purpose the order was issued by the Municipal Corporation, Surat on 27-12-1994. The petitioner had gone to the office of the Municipal Corporation, Surat on 28/29-12-1994 to inquire with regard to the publication of any notice inviting tenders for the job in question and he therefrom came to know that orders in favour of respondents Nos. 2 and 3 have been issued by the Surat Municipal Corporation and the present special Civil Application was thereupon filed on 30-12-1994. The matter came up before this Court on 2-1-1995 and on that very day Rule as well as Notice as to interim relief returnable by 4-1-1995 was issued. The respondents entered appearance and they have filed their affidavit-in-reply. 2 and 3 have been issued by the Surat Municipal Corporation and the present special Civil Application was thereupon filed on 30-12-1994. The matter came up before this Court on 2-1-1995 and on that very day Rule as well as Notice as to interim relief returnable by 4-1-1995 was issued. The respondents entered appearance and they have filed their affidavit-in-reply. The respondent No. 1 has taken the stand that the contract relating to the job for preparation of Voters list for the year 1994 had been given to the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 in the year 1994 after inviting tenders and at that point of time the petitioner had not applied. It has also been submitted in the affidavit-in-reply that there were certain directions issued by the High Court with regard to the holding of the Municipal Elections and consequentially orders have been issued by the State Election Commission and the steps had to be taken in accordance with the directions as received from the State election Commission in pursuance of the direction of the High Court and, therefore, for reasons of expediency the contract for 1995 was also given to respondents Nos. 2 and 3. It has also been argued by Mr. Desai on behalf of the Municipal Corporation, surat that there is no violation of Rule 2 of Chapter V because under the proviso to sub-rule (2) the Commissioner may enter into any contract without inviting the tenders subject to authorisation by the Standing Committee for reasons to be recorded in its proceedings and he has submitted that keeping in view the terms of this proviso, the action of the respondent No. 1 can be sustained and it is not open to challenge. Mr. Gandhi, learned Counsel, appearing on behalf of respondents nos. 2 and 3 has submitted that although the petitioner has argued that he has quoted the rate of Rs. 46. 00 per page for publication of the Voters List and that appears to be less than the rate quoted by the respondents Nos. 2 and 3, i. e. , Rs. 66. 00 per page, but looking to the over all details, the terms and conditions of the rate quoted by respondents Nos. 46. 00 per page for publication of the Voters List and that appears to be less than the rate quoted by the respondents Nos. 2 and 3, i. e. , Rs. 66. 00 per page, but looking to the over all details, the terms and conditions of the rate quoted by respondents Nos. 2 and 3 are more advantageous to the Municipal corporation in comparison to the terms, which are suggested by the petitioner, because according to him, the petitioner has quoted the rate of Rs. 46. 00 per page containing 78 voters per page whereas the respondents Nos. 2 and 3 will be publishing the names of 100 voters in one page. ( 5 ) I have considered the submissions made at the Bar on behalf of both the sides. There is no dispute that the qualifying date for the purpose of preparation of the Voters list in question is 1-1-1995 and the Voters list for the Municipal corporation, Surat are to be prepared on the basis of Voters list of the general assembly election and the Voters list of the general Assembly election was published on 2-1-1995. Draft Voters list for general Assembly election had been published earlier. It is factually not in dispute that in fact, Surat Municipal Corporation did not issue any notice inviting applications for the job in question for the preparation of the Voters list of 1995 and the job contract has been given to the respondents nos. 2 and 3 without inviting any applications for the year 1995, merely on the ground that they had done the job for the year 1994. So far as the aid of the proviso in sub-rule (2) of Rule 2 of Chapter V of the B. P. M. C. Act, which was sought by the learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 during the course of the argument, is concerned, I called upon the learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 to show from the records as to whether any order has been passed by the Administrator, who is said to have stepped into the shoes of the Standing Committee, with recorded reasons permitting the Commissioner to enter into a contract without inviting tenders as permitted under the said proviso. The learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 failed to show any such order passed by the Administrator in the record. The learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 failed to show any such order passed by the Administrator in the record. Nor he was able to satisfy that the terms of this proviso had been complied with. His argument is that the action of the Commissioner in giving the contract without inviting the tenders has been subsequently approved by the Administrator on 3-1-1995 and since the Administrator has approved the action of the Commissioner on 3-1-1995, it amounts to compliance of the said proviso. Having given thoughtful consideration, the Court is of the considered opinion that such a permission by the administrator to the Commissioner, while the Administrators acts for the Standing committee, has to be recorded in advance with reasons and unless such an order is passed by the Administrator for reasons to be recorded in writing authorising the Commissioner to enter into a contract without inviting tenders, the action of the Commissioner to give such a contract without inviting tenders is an invalid exercise and such an exercise in absence of prior order of the Administrator cannot be sustained in the eye of law. Such an action from its very inception is violative of the basic principles enshrined in Art. 14 of the Constitution of India, apart from being violative of the proviso itself, and therefore, this action on the part of the commissioner to give the contract without inviting tenders is an action which is void ab initio. This safeguard has been provided under the Rules only to give effect to the principle of reasonableness as an antithesis to an arbitrary action. This safeguard has been provided under the Rules only to give effect to the principle of reasonableness as an antithesis to an arbitrary action. Therefore, while the proviso cloths the Administrator with the power to authorise the Commissioner to enter into a contract without inviting tenders in appropriate cases looking to the urgency of the situation for reasons to be recorded in writing, it does not invest the Commissioner with a power to proceed to enter into the contract without inviting tender even in absence of an order to this effect passed under the said proviso by the Administrator, nor the so-called post approval by the administrator for the Commissioners unlawful action can be an answer to the breach of Rule and violation of Art. 14 of the Constitution of India as would appear from the language of Rule 2 of Chapter V of Schedule A of the B. P. M. C. Act, 1949, which is reproduced as under for ready reference :"2. (1) Except as is hereinafter otherwise provided, the Commissioner or any officer authorised by him in this behalf shall, at least seven days before entering into any contract for the execution of any work or the supply of any materials or goods which will involve an expenditure exceeding three thousand rupees or such higher amount as the Corporation may, with the approval of the State Government, from time to time prescribe, give notice by advertisement is the local news papers, inviting tenders for such contract. (2) The Commissioner shall not be bound to accept any tender which may be made in pursuance of such notice, but may accept, subject to the provision of clause (c) of Sec. 73, any of the tenders so made which appears to him, upon a view of all the circumstances, to be the most advantageous : provided that the Standing Committee may authorise the Commissioner, for reasons which shall be recorded in its proceedings, to enter into a contract without inviting tenders as herein provided or without accepting any tender which he may receive after having invited them. " ( 6 ) THE learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 cited before me the case of m/s. Asiatic Labour Corpn. v. Union of India, reported in AIR 1983 Guj. " ( 6 ) THE learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 cited before me the case of m/s. Asiatic Labour Corpn. v. Union of India, reported in AIR 1983 Guj. 86 : [ 1983 (2) GLR 1326 ] and the case of Ramana v. I. A. Authority of India, reported in AIR 1979 SC 1628 . In both these cases, the principles have been laid down as to how the States or its Agencies or Instrumentalities have to act in the matters of awarding contracts, but I fail to understand how any of the observations made in any of these two cases can help the respondent-Corporation so as to answer the breach of Rule 2 of Chapter V when there is no basis for the Commissioner to act under the proviso. It may be that in appropriate cases, the contract awarding authority is not obliged to accept the lowest rate and it may take into consideration the quality, efficiency and expertise of a particular party and it may accept the rate, which may be high, but that does not absolve such authority from the obligation of discharging its burden under Art. 14 of the Constitution of India, as also under the Rules. The learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 has submitted that looking to the urgency of the matter, the said course of action was adopted. This argument of the learned Counsel for the respondent No. 1 cannot be accepted for the simple reason that admittedly the revised programme, according to which the draft Voters list was to be published in January 1995, had been received by the Municipal corporation, Surat in the month of November, 1994 and if the same had been received by the Municipal Corporation, Surat in November, 1994, it could have certainly complied with the requirements of Rule 2 and the learned Counsel for the respondents have failed to show any reason whatsoever for not issuing the notice inviting tenders right in the month of November 1994 itself when the directions with regard to the revised programme had been duly received by them. At that time, the Municipal Corporation, Surat had ample time and opportunity to comply with the requirements of Rule 2 and issue a seven days, notice inviting tenders at least. At that time, the Municipal Corporation, Surat had ample time and opportunity to comply with the requirements of Rule 2 and issue a seven days, notice inviting tenders at least. Thus, the argument of the urgency does not appeal at all in the face of admitted factual position of the receipt of the revised programme in the month of November, 1994. ( 7 ) UPSHOT of the aforesaid discussion is that the action of the respondent no. 1 in awarding this job contract to respondents Nos. 2 and 3 cannot be sustained in the eye of law and the same is hereby declared to be illegal. However, no directions in this regard can be straightway issued in favour of the petitioner for the simple reason that had the Municipal Corporation, Surat issued the notice inviting tenders in accordance with Rule 2, there might have been many more parties to apply and the Municipal Corporation, Surat would have had the opportunity of considering the terms and conditions of such parties, who might have applied and, therefore, having declared the action of the respondent No. 1 in awarding the contract for 1995 for preparing the Voters list to respondents No. 2 and 3 to be illegal, it is directed that the Municipal Corporation, Surat may henceforth act promptly in accordance with the provisions of Rule 2 of Chapter V of Schedule A of the B. P. M. C. Act and decide the question of giving this job contract in accordance with law afresh. This Speical Civil Application is allowed and the Rule is made absolute accordingly with no order as to costs. Direct Service. .