S.J. Vazifdar, J.

1. Respondents no. 2 and 3 are the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as 'HPCL') and its Senior Regional Manager. Respondent no.4 is one Smt. Rajashri Vijay Sawardekar who has been held to be the successful tenderer.

The petitioner seeks a writ of certiorari to quash and set aside a merit list and the selection process for a Retail Outlet Dealership and a letter of intent dated 19/08/2011 issued by respondent no.2 for the proposed Retail Outlet Dealership in favour of respondent no.4. The petitioner has also sought a writ of mandamus directing respondent no.2 to undertake the process of selection for the said dealership afresh from amongst the eligible candidates. The petitioner has sought the reassessment/revaluation of the marks allocated to him under the criteria 'Liquid cash in the form of bank Fixed Deposit etc.' under the heading 'capability to arrange the finance'.

2. There is absolutely no doubt that justice and equity are in favour of the petitioner who was admittedly eligible to bid for the dealership. More important, the grant of reliefs in the petitioner's favour is clearly in the interest of HPCL and thereby in public interest. Indeed, a rejection of this petition would be detrimental to public interest as it would deny HPCL the benefit of the services of the most suitable candidate to run the retail outlet for a long period initially for 15 years which is extendable. The respondents admit that the petitioner was eligible to apply for the dealership. The only question is whether the petitioner's application contains the following hyper technical flaw, disentitling him to any marks in respect of one criterion.

The applications for the dealership were to be evaluated on the basis of various criteria. The estimated financial requirement was a mere Rs.10 lakhs. The applicant's capacity to provide finance was to be assessed. The criterion in this regard was captioned : 'Liquid cash in the form of bank fixed deposits etc.'. The applicants were in the first instance to furnish attested copies of documents, evidencing their capacity to provide finance and to produce the originals thereof at the interview.

As against the estimated required investment of Rs.10 lakhs, the petitioner had Fixed Deposit Receipts alone of over Rs.11 crores issued by the Bank of Baroda. He was, however, awarded nil marks under the criterion 'Liquid cash in the form of bank fixed deposits etc.' on the ground that the copies of the Fixed Deposit Receipts were not “duly attested”. We have held that the FDRs were duly attested and the petitioner's documents are bound to be considered while evaluating his application qua the said criterion.

What we have held, in a nutshell, is this. The advertisement did not specify the mode or manner of attestation of such documents. This and indeed several of the terms and conditions read together establish that self-attestation of such documents was permissible. There is absolutely no danger in so construing the provision of the tender conditions as in any event the attestation is subject to verification with the originals. The petitioner accordingly attested the FDR's himself.

3. The facts are not in dispute. Respondent no.1 published on 16/06/2010 a notice for the appointment of Retail Outlet Dealers for various districts and under various categories. The petitioner and respondent no.4 applied under the open category at the same location. Column K stipulated Rs.10,00,000/-excluding the cost of land as the estimated investment required from the applicants. The publication contains detailed terms and conditions in the form of notes, general terms and conditions and prescribed the application form and the format of the affidavit to be filed by the applicants. Several of these terms and conditions were relied upon on behalf of the petitioners and the respondents. They by consent handed over the relevant provisions thereof. The same incorporates the brochure i