The court affirmed that a tendering authority's timeline for bid submission is not subject to judicial scrutiny unless proven arbitrary, and a non-participating bidder lacks standing to challenge tender conditions.

JUDGMENT :

(N.V. Anjaria, C.J.)

Whether an intending bidder could ask and insist that he should be allowed a particular timeline to submit his bid; whether in the facts and circumstances of the case, the appellant-bidder could have any right to call in question the condition in the tender regarding the time period within which the bid-offer was required to be submitted; whether there exists in law any right such as right to bid in particular way and whether the condition in the tender prescribing the time period for submission of the bid would fall within the breath of judicial review by the court - are few of the questions of the kind and nature, that have arisen for consideration in this appeal.

The Challenge

2. Preferred under Section 4 of Karnataka High Court Act, 1961 by the original petitioner, the challenge in this writ appeal is addressed to the judgment and order dated 6th March 2024 of learned Single Judge whereby the petition came to be dismissed, and the Tender Inviting Authority was permitted to take the tender to its logical conclusion.

2.1. In the writ petition filed by the appellant-petitioner under Article 226 of the Constitution, it was prayed to declare that the last date for submission of bid document stipulated to be 23rd February 2024 in the Notice Inviting Tender as modified by the corrigendum dated 17th February 2024 was unreasonable, arbitrary and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution. A direction was sought for against the respondent No.1-Karnataka Power Corporation Limited to revise, amend and modify the said condition in the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT). It was further prayed to direct the Tender Inviting Authority to provide the last date and time for submission of bid documents as 3rd May 2024 upto 17.30 hours or such other date the court may deem appropriate.

2.2. The condition by which the petitioner company was aggrieved was in Clause 17 at page 10 of volume I, part-I of the NIT dated 2nd February 2024, as modified in the Corrigendum. It provided twenty one days time for the prospective bidders to submit their offers. The case of the petitioner in nutshell was that having regard to the size, volume and nature of the tender work, period of 21 days was too short.

Basic Facts

3. Noticing the facts, on 7th January 2024, that the respondent-Karnataka Power Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as 'Corporation') published a draft Notice Inviting Tender for the Sharavathy Pumped Storage Project. Suggestions were invited from the prospective bidders. The tender was floated on 2nd February 2024. The tender was in respect of "Sharavathy Pumped Storage Hydro Electric Project (8x250mw) Upper Dam (Shimoga) and Lower Dam (Uttara Kannada) District, Karnataka".

3.1 The tender work was described as "Design, Engineering, Manufacturing, testing at manufacturer's works before dispatch, Supply, transportation, storage at site, intra-site transportation, 10 insurance (transit, storage cum erection testing & commissioning), erection, testing and commissioning of 8 nos. Vertical Francis Reversible Pump-Turbines and synchronous Motor-Generator sets each of 250MW capacity along with all associated auxiliary and ancillary equipment, 420KV GIS, Pothead yard & Power evacuation Structures including civil works and hydro-mechanical works of Sharavathy Pumped Storage Project on EPC (TURN KEY) basis at Upper dam (Shimoga) & Lower dam (Uttara Kannada) District, Karnataka".

3.1.1 The project was estimated to be value of Rs. 8005 crore to be completed within the contract period of five years. Admittedly, the project involved the civil work combined with electro-mechanical and hydro-mechanical works. It was the common case that in view of the specialised technical work of electro-mechanical (E&M) and hydro-mechanical (HM) which was inseparable part of the project execution, the bidder would have required a tie-up and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) executed with expert-player in the field as a part of capacity build