JUDGMENT :

1. Leave Granted.

2. These appeals have been preferred by Bharat Coking Coal Ltd. (hereinafter “BCCL”) being aggrieved by the order dated 12.04.2018 passed by a Division Bench of the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi, wherein a writ petition filed by AMR-Dev Prabha (Respondent No. 1) had been allowed and the auction process conducted by M/s C1 India Pvt. Ltd. (Respondent No. 4, hereinafter “C1-India”) was set aside and the resultant award of tender by BCCL to M/s R.K. Transport Co. (Respondent No. 6) had also been quashed.

FACTUAL BACKGROUND

3. BCCL, a subsidiary of Coal India Ltd. operates coking coal mines in India and as part of its operations regularly out-sources many mining and processing functions to external entities. Such allocation of tasks is done through competitive bidding processes, with Respondent No. 4 [M/s C1 India Pvt. Ltd. (hereinafter “C1 India”) - an online procurement facilitator] being appointed as the service provider for e-tendering of its contracts.

4. A Notice Inviting Tender (“NIT”) was issued by the appellant on 09.03.2015 for purposes of ‘Hiring of HEMM for removal of OB, extraction and transportation of coal with fire fighting from XIV, XII, XI/