Markandeya Katju, CJ.

1. This writ petition is filed by the petitioners praying for issuance of a writ of certiorari for quashing the impugned communication dated 9th December 2005 and for issuance of a writ of mandamus directing respondent No.2, Petronet LNG Limited (hereinafter referred to as Petronet), to withdraw the communication dated 9th December 2005 and to act in pursuance of the communication dated 5th December 2005 addressed to the petitioner. It is also prayed that respondent No.2 be directed not to consider the bid of respondent No.3 Teekay and Great Eastern Shipping Consortium.

2. Heard learned counsel for the parties and perused the record.

3. The contract in question is in respect of building and time chartering of LNG tankers for shipping LNG from Qatar to Dahej. In this connection the respondent No.2 invited tenders. Only four parties obtained the tender forms, and only three submitted bids. It is alleged in paragraph 6 of the writ petition that the bid submitted by the petitioner consortium was accepted by Petronet and by a communication dated 5th December 2005 Petronet communicated this to the petitioner and awarded the contract to the petitioner and only a formal execution of the relevant document remained. However it is alleged that the respondent malafide took a complete 'U' turn in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner and has sought to now re-bid the tender for awarding the said contract.

4. The facts and details are mentioned in paragraph 7 of the writ petition and we are only referring to the relevant part of the same. Under the bid in question bidders were required to make bid for one or two tankers for Dahej and one tanker for Kochi or for all three tankers. The said bid was contained in set of documents called Bid Documents. A copy of the Request for Proposal Time Charter Agreement and part of addendums are annexed to the writ petition and marked as Annexure A, B & C. Three consortia submitted their bids but the bids of all three bidders departed, in some respects, from the requirements of Request for Proposal. This is technically called a deviation. Petitioner consortium and the Mitsui Corsortium dropped these deviations but respondent No.3 consortium however did not and it was thus held technically ineligible. The rejection of the bid of respondent No.3 has been recorded in the Minutes of meeting dated 1st December 2005.A copy of the said Minutes of meeting dated 1st December 2005 are annexed with the writ petition and marked as Annexure D to the petition. It is alleged in paragraph 7 CD that the bid of the petitioner and Mitsui was open and bid of the petitioner was found to be lower than that of the Mitsui and accepted. The bid of the respondent No.3 was rejected and was not considered at the price bid stage at all. By a communication dated 5th December 2005, respondent No.1 informed Ras Laffan LNG, Qatar, that the petitioner consortium had been selected for transportation of the LNG from Ras Laffan LNG to Dahej. True copy of the said communication dated 5th December 2005 is annexed with the writ petition as Annexure. It is alleged that the said communication constitutes and/or evidences the acceptance of the bid of the petitioner, and a communication of the said acceptance, a binding concluded and enforceable contract came to be concluded between the petitioner consortium and the respondent No.2 and only a formal document is now required to be sent.

5. However, by subsequent communication dated 9th December 2005 Petronet informed the petitioner that due to a change in the applicable law, the respondent No.2 had decided to call for re-submission of the price bids from all three bidders. All three bidders were requested to submit their unconditional price bid. The petitioners were informed that their bids should be re-submitted by 12th December 2005. True copy of communication dated 9th December 2005 is annexed to the petition and is marked as Annexure F to the petition. The purported reas