JUDGMENT :

Prakash Shrivastava, J.

1. By way of this intra-court appeal writ petitioners have challenged the order of the learned Single Judge dated 10th of November, 2022 whereby W.P.A. 15129 of 2022 has been dismissed.

2. The appellants had approached writ Court with the plea that for the purpose of licensing of Mohan Kumar Mangalam (MKM) Park, the respondent authorities of DST had entrusted the respondent No. 4 and 5 with the job of e-auction. In response to the tender notice, the appellant No.1 had participated in the online tender process and had submitted the bid. According to the appellants, they were shown the hammer in the display screen from which they came to know that appellant No.1 had become the highest bidder. Further case of the appellants was that prior to the closure of the bidding process the appellant No.1 was shown as H1, hence, the appellant had sent e-mail dated 01.07.2022 to the concerned authorities informing that he had become the highest bidder, but surprisingly on 02.07.2022, the appellant was informed by the representative of the respondent Nos. 4 and 5 that the appellant No.1 was not declared to be the auction winner. After submitting the representation, the appellants had filed the petition seeking a direction to the respondents to issue letter of intent in favour of the appellant No.1 being legally valid highest bidder.

3. Learned Single Judge has considered the twin arguments of the appellants. Firstly, the appellants were not given an additional 8 minutes from the closing time of auction, therefore, they were deprived of the chance to better the last bid put in by the H1 bidder and secondly appellant and H1 bidder had come to a tie at the same time on 14:57 hours. Learned Single Judge found that the reliance on clause 3.3 and 3.5 of the MSTC auction in respect of the claim of 8 minutes was misplaced and additional time of 3 minutes was to be given by the tendering authority and in fact 3 minutes and 1 second was given for the present auction.

4. Before this Court, submission of learned Counsel for the appellants is that from the screenshot of the laptop taken by the appellants, it was clear that the appellant No.1 was the H1 bidder till the closure of the auction. His submission is that the document at page 158 which is stated to be the bid report is a manipulated document.

5. As against this, submission of respondent Nos. 4 and 5 is that the appellant No.1 is not the highest bidder and that there was a provision for proxy bid and proxy bidder was H1 and the report at page 158 is a system generated report, therefore, allegation of manipulation is unfounded. Further submission is that in spite of the request no screenshot showing hammer on submitting the bid of the appellant No.1 was furnished by the appellants.

6. Learned Counsel for the respondent Nos. 3, 6 and 7 has also opposed the appeal by submitting that after the proxy bidder was declared as H1, the letter of acceptance dated 12.11.2022 has been issued in his favour, in terms of the contract he has furnished bank guarantee on 16.11.2022, the agreement has been executed on 17.11.2022 and the possession has been handed over on 21.11.2022 but the successful bidder has not been impleaded, therefore, no interference in this case is required.

7. We have heard learned Counsel for the parties and perused the record.

8. Before entering into the merits of the controversy, it would be appropriate to take into account the legal position in respect of scope of interference in contractual matters. It is the settled position of law that the limited interference in exercise of the power of judicial review in tender matter is called for that too in cases where the approach of the tendering authority was arbitrary or mala fide or tendering authority had adopted procedure to favour someone. Technical evaluation or comparison by the Court is impermissible. It is also settled that the Court must realize their limitations and the havoc which needless interference in