ORDER :

R. Raghunandan Rao, J.

1. The 2nd respondent had issued a tender notice through Tender Enquiry No. 11.1B/APMSIDC/2021-22, dated 15.07.2021 requesting for provision of Sick New Born Care Units (SNCUs) at CHCs, AH, MCHs and DHs in Andhra Pradesh. The petitioner had submitted its tender document on 31.07.2021 after complying with all the required formalities. The tender evaluation process was to be done in two stages, i.e., technical bid and financial bid. The procedure adopted by the 2nd respondent was that after preliminary evaluation of the technical bid, the bidders would be informed of their deficiencies which could be rectified by them. In the case of the petitioner, the 2nd respondent had pointed out certain deficiencies, which were rectified by the petitioner. However, one of the deficiencies pointed out by the 2nd respondent was the non-submission of GST registration certificate. The petitioner took the stand that it was an entity involved in the business of Healthcare Services, which were exempted from payment of Goods and Services Tax by notification No. 9/2017-Integrated Tax (Rate), dated 28.06.2017 and as such the petitioner was exempted from registering it under the GST Act and the requirement of producing GST registration certificate would not apply to the petitioner.

2. The 2nd respondent rejected the technical bid of the Petitioner and cleared the technical bids of the 3rd and 4th respondents. Aggrieved by the said rejection of its bid and the acceptance of the technical bid of the 3rd and 4th Respondents, the Petitioner has filed the present writ petition.

3. The contentions of the Petitioner, in this regard, are as follows :

A. The bid of the petitioner could not have been rejected on the ground of non-furnishing of GST registration certificate as there was no requirement for the Petitioner to register itself under the GST Act and consequently the 3rd respondent could not have insisted for production of such a registration certificate.

B. The 3rd respondent is part of a consortium, which had bid for the tender. The lead partner of this consortium is Sri Ramachandra Children and Dental Hospital. As per the tender documents, wherever consortium is submitting a tender document, the said tender document can be submitted only by the lead bidder who should authenticate the bids with its digital signature. However, it was the 3rd respondent, who submitted the bid and not Sri Ramachandra Children and Dental Hospital, which is the lead member of the consortium. In such a situation the bid submitted by the 3rd respondent could not have been taken into account at all.

C. The 4th respondent did not have minimum three years of experience in carrying out of operation and maintenance of operations of SNCU in private and public sectors and as such was not eligible to be considered in the technical bid. Further, the 4th respondent while giving its experience details had uploaded the certificate given by NRI Academy of Sciences, which states that the 4th respondent had carried out operations and maintenance of SNCUs through NRI Academy of Sciences in execution of a contract entered by NRI Academy of Sciences with the Government of A.P. The petitioner contends that such an experience cannot be taken into account as the contract between M/s. NRI Academy of Sciences and the Government of A.P. does not provide for subcontracting or subletting of the contract and as such any such sub-contract would be illegal and cannot be taken into account.

4. Respondent Nos. 2 and 4 have filed counter affidavits in the matter disputing the contentions raised by the petitioners. Sri Rathangapani Reddy, learned counsel appearing for the 3rd respondent made his submissions on the basis of the documents before the Court.

5. The 2nd respondent took the stand that the production of GST registration certificate is a mandatory requirement for being qualified in the technical bid and in view of the non-furnishing of such GST registration certificate, the pe