( 1 ) BY this writ petition the petitioners, inter alia, 63 seek a writ injuncting. first respondent National Airport Authority, (for short NAA ) from granting the contract for modernisation of Air Traffic services and other connected facilities at Delhi and Bombay Airports to the third respondent, Raytheon Incorporated.

( 2 ) THOUGH the petition is still at the admission stage parties have filed detailed pleadings and documents and have addressed arguments at length.

( 3 ) IN order to appreciate the controversy raised in the petition, it will be necessary to give relevant facts, which are as under:

( 4 ) NAA prepared a scheme for modernisation of Air Traffic Control Services at Bombay and Delhi Airports with the avowed purpose of installing sophisticated state of art radar, navigation, automation and communication equipment and for providing services so as to raise the capacity of the aforesaid airports from the present level of ten aircraft moments, per hour to forty aircraft moments per hour and other connected facilities. On clearance of the scheme in June,1990 by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs, detailed tender documents were prepared and eventually the first respondent by a public notice dated January 24, 1991 invited global tenders for the installation of the aforesaid equipment and for providing services required for modernisation of air traffic control system at Bombay and Delhi Airports on turn key basis. According to the notice, the offerers were required to give their bids in four parts, namely, Part I: Pre-qualification bid Part II : Technical bid. Part III: Commercial bid. Part IV: Financial bid.

( 5 ) THE first petitioner, Thomson-CSF, and Sofreavia S. A. , Consortium of French companies (for short consortium ) and the third respondent Raytheon Incorporated, an American Company, submitted their tenders on June 25,1991. Alenia, yet another foreign enterprise also submitted its bid.

( 6 ) ON August 21, 1990, the Board of first respondent appointed a Tender Committee to examine the various bids. In this task it was assisted by a Technical Committee. The pre-qualification bids of the bidders were opened on June 26, 1991 and all of them were found to meet the pre-qualification criteria. On July 29,1991 the technical bids were opened and the same were evaluated and analysed by the Technical Committee, whichwas in turn assisted by sub-committees, the members whereof were chosen from amongst the officers of the first respondent having expert knowledge of similar systems.

( 7 ) SINCE certain clarifications were required from the tenderers, an opportunity was given to them to present their respective cases on system and equipment proposed to be supplied to the first respondent. On consideration of the tenders and the presentations made by the tenderers, the Technical Committee recommended the short-listing of the Consortium and Raytheon. Thereafter the Tender Committee appointed an External Committee, comprising of Prof. P. V. Indiresan, Director IIT Delhi, Gr. Capt. R. S. Sivaswamy, retired General Manager HAL, Hyderabad and Chairman National Radar Council and working group on Radars and on Navigational Aids and Shri V. Ramasubramaniam, Retired Deputy Director General, DGCA, to look into the technical evaluation. The external experts carried out the evaluation and submitted their report. As a result of the evaluation carried out by the external experts and the Technical Committee, only Consortium and Raytheon were short-listed.

( 8 ) ON April 28, 1992 the financial bids of the Consortium and the third respondent were opened. They were also called for contract finalisation negotiations. After detailed discussions, both were called upon to submit their final offers in the prescribed form before July 10, 1992. On receipt of the revised and final offers they were opened on July 31, 1992. It appears that the consortium having lost the race to the third respondent and the first petitioner having c