The court emphasized the importance of complying with tender qualification criteria and upheld the authority of the evaluation committee in assessing bid documents.

JUDGMENT :

S.G. Dige, J.

By this Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the Petitioner takes exception to the acceptance of the technical bid of the Samudra Electronic System Pvt. Ltd., (for short, Respondent No. 2) and rejection of its technical bid by the Sangli Miraj Kupwad Municipal Corporation (for short, Respondent No. 1).

2. Briefly stated, the facts are as under :

(a) The Petitioner is a Public Limited Company. The Sangli Miraj Kupwad Municipal Corporation floated a Tender dated 26th March, 2021 for the work of Implementation of Energy Efficiency Measures in Public Street Lightening System in Sangli Miraj and Kupwad City Municipal Corporation under a shared savings framework replacement of existing street lights with High Efficiency Smart LED streetlights, installation of smart LED streetlights on empty poles and replacement of existing switching points with IOT based Centralised Control Monitoring System (CCMS) using GPRS/GSM and wireless communication technology for Individual Lamp Group of lamps controlling using Customised Lighting Management Software (LMS) on ESCO basis, including existing infrastructure rectification for a period of 15 years after Project COD by infusing upfront Capital Funds and recovering the same through valuation of Saved Energy Share of ESCO (for short “said Tender”).

(b) Pursuant to the queries raised by the potential bidders in pre-bid meeting, the Respondent No. 1 issued two corrigenda dated 8th April, 2021 and 12th April, 2021, thereby modifying and clarifying certain clauses of the said tender. The Tender document stipulated that the bidders should submit their technical bids along with the financial bids and only those bidders who qualified the technical criteria, their technical bid would be accepted and only then their financial bid would be opened. Accordingly, the Petitioner as well as the Respondent No. 2, who were the only two bidders, submitted their bid in accordance with the tender notice.

(c) After scrutinizing the documents submitted by the Petitioner, Respondent No. 1 sent letter to Petitioner and asked to furnish PAN Card, Udham Registration Certificate, NSIC Certificate and Non-infringement of Patent, which the Petitioner furnished through email on 19th June 2021 to Respondent No. 1.

(d) In the meantime, the Petitioner took inspection of the documents submitted by the Respondent No. 2 along with their technical bid. On perusal of the turnover certificate for the financial year 2017-18 submitted by the Respondent No. 2, the Petitioner found the turnover of Respondent No. 2 was Rs. 653.32 lakhs i.e. Rs. 6.53 crores which was much less than the minimum required turnover of Rs. 15 crores for last three years as provided under Clause 3.1. II. of the said Tender. According to the Petitioner, there was a serious infirmity in the eligibility of the Respondent No. 2 and therefore, vide its letter dated 19th June, 2021, the Petitioner immediately raised objection regarding the deficit in turnover of the Respondent No. 2 to the Respondent No. 1 along with other objections.

(e) On 28th June, 2021, the Respondent No. 1 opened the technical bids of the Petitioner as well as the Respondent No. 2 and prepared a technical bid evaluation report. As per said report, the technical bid of the Petitioner was rejected and technical bid of the Respondent No. 2 was accepted.

(f) The Petitioner contends that though the Petitioner had submitted all the relevant documents as required under the Tender Notice, the Respondent No. 1 has arbitrarily and unreasonably rejected the technical bid of the Petitioner. The Petitioner vide its letter dated 1st July, 2021 (“Exhibit O” to the Petition) again raised its concern with Respondent No. 1 regarding non-consideration of the objections raised by the Petitioner with respect to the deficiency in turnover of the Respondent No. 2. However, the Respondent No. 1 blatantly ignored the objections of the Petitioner and accepted the bid of the Respondent No.