Compliance with specific pre-qualification criteria and terms and conditions of a tender notice is crucial for the acceptance of a bid.

JUDGMENT :

1. The petitioner no. 2 is the sole director of the petitioner no. 1, which is a woman-run certified MSE (Micro and Small Enterprise) company. The petitioners participated in a tender floated by the Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL), which is the respondent no. 1 herein, on August 25, 2021 for road transportation of bulk petroleum products-black oil for 52 Tank Trucks (TTs) for two years. Corrigenda of the initial tender notice were published on September 20 and 30 and October 20, 2021. The last date for submission of bids, as finally extended, was November 1, 2021. The bid of petitioner no. 1 was submitted on September 20, 2021, for which an acknowledgment receipt was issued by the IOCL.

2. The petitioners allege that on receipt of the petitioner’s online bid application, the Assistant Manager (Contracts) ERO, IOCL verbally asked petitioner no. 2 why no RC Book had been provided in respect of the TTs and that the petitioner cited delay in the concerned registration offices in handing over RC Books for all five TTs to the petitioner, apparently due to the then prevailing pandemic situation. According to the petitioners, they received hard copies of the RC Books only in the first week of December, 2021, after initiating an email communication with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India on November 25, 2021.

3. On February 1, 2022, the IOCL Tender Evaluation Committee sent an e-mail to the petitioners, informing that the candidature of the petitioner no.1-company had been rejected during technical evaluation for non-submission of RC Book of any of the offered TTs.

4. On February 2, 2022, the financial bid was opened and the respondent no. 1 selected 12 bidders and uploaded the tender summary report on February 19, 2022 with status update of the bidders.

5. Challenging such rejection and seeking mandamus directing the respondent no. 1 to accept the petitioners’ bid and to issue a Letter of Intent on consideration of the petitioners’ financial bid, as well as seeking other consequential reliefs, the petitioners have moved the present writ petition.

6. Learned counsel for the petitioners argues that the petitioners could not submit the RC Books due to no fault on their part, but for laches on the part of the issuing authorities, and should not have been penalized for such non submission. Moreover, the petitioners had submitted sufficient documents online to prove the prior registration of all five TTs.

7. That apart, it is argued, the bias of the tender was on procuring TTs of latest models and the petitioners’ TTs were the newest in the fray, even compared with those of the successful bidders, which entitled the petitioner no. 1-company to get selected as a successful bidder.

8. Learned counsel contends that such rejection of the petitioners’ bid on the part of the respondent-authorities was biased and arbitrary, being against the best interest of the Government. Tenders for public utility services ought to be inclusive, to ensure participation of maximum contenders, which was discouraged in favour of some particular bidders in the present case.

9. The petitioners further submit that two of their TTs were registered in Manipur on June 15, 2021 and the other three on September 17, 2021, all of which were prior to November 1, 2021, which was the last date of submission of bids.

10. Learned counsel for the petitioners contends that the petitioners complied duly with the provisions of Section 41 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 (for short, “the MV Act”) which provides for registration of motor vehicles, as well as Rule 48 of the Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 (for brevity, “the MV Rules”), which reads as follows:

48. Issue of certificate of registration.—On receipt of an application under rule 47 and after verification of the documents furnished therewith, the registering authority shall, subject to the provisions of section 44, issue to the owner of the motor vehicle a certificate of registration in F