The main legal point established in the judgment is that the non-submission of essential documents as per the tender requirements resulted in the bid being substantially non-responsive and liable to be summarily rejected.

S. RAVINDRA BHAT, J.

Facts

1. The petitioner (described as “Indwell”) is engaged in construction business; it claims a direction to the Rail Vikas Nigam Limited (hereafter “RVNL” or “respondent”) to consider its price bid as responsive. Indwell had lodged its bid for construction of some structures, in response to RVNL’s tender (“NIT”).

2. The facts are that the respondent issued the NIT on 06.05.2017 for construction of sheds, structures, buildings etc., in connection with setting up of Wagon Periodic Overhauling (POH) workshop at Vadlapudi Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh. Later, on 19.05.2017, an Addendum/Corrigendum-1 was issued wherein the estimated cost for some of the items in “Summary Sheet of Bill of Quantities” was changed. This estimated cost was the benchmark based on which the bidders were to quote the price in their price bid. Indwell had purchased the bid document on 25.05.2017 and submitted its bid on 17.07.2017 at RVNL’s office, at Visakhapatnam. Nine bids including that of Indwell were submitted. The same day, the nine bids were separated into price bids and technical bids by RVNL and the nine technical bids of the bidders were opened before them and a list of documents submitted with each of the bids was made by the respondent. On 24.07.2017, the respondent through a letter addressed to the petitioner sought the rectification of certain deficiencies in the Technical Bid of the petitioner. The petitioner’s letter dated 25.07.2017, corrected all seven rectifications sought by RVNL and submitted all the relevant documents including a fresh affidavit as required by the respondent in its letter addressed to the petitioner. Thereafter, by letter, dated 07.08.2017, Indwell was notified about the qualification of its Bid at the end of Technical Evaluation by RVNL. The petitioner was also informed that the price bids was scheduled to be opened on 16.08.2017.

3. On 16.08.2017, the price bids of all nine technically qualified bidders were opened in the presence of their representatives. At this stage the bid opening statement recorded that the petitioner’s price bid contained two mistakes, i.e. Indwell had not submitted the Letter of Price Bid (hereafter “LPB”) as required in the prescribed Form PS-2 and the Summary Sheet of Bill of Quantities was in accordance with the terms of the original tender and not the subsequent addendum that was issued. On 21.08.2017, Indwell wrote a letter to RVNL pointing out that their price bid was substantially responsive. It was pointed out that on account of an inadvertent error while submitting the bid they missed out on enclosing the “Letter of Price Bid” (Form PS-2) and the same was being submitted along with the letter. Similarly, it was also pointed out that the “Summary Sheet of Bill of Quantities” was submitted as per the estimated cost in the original bid document issued on 06.05.2017 and not as per the Addendum/Corrigendum-1, issued on 19.05.2017, on account of an inadvertent error. The clarified BoQ as per the amended cost estimates was also enclosed. It was further pointed out in the letter that these aspects had no financial implications.

4. Indwell, apprehensive that its price bid would be regarded as substantially non-responsive, wrote a letter dated 23.08.2017 to RVNL reminding it of the submission of the LPB (Form PS-2) and the Summary Sheet of Bill of Quantities in the revised format. This letter also pointed out that at the technical stage of the bid, non submission of certain affidavits in the required format which would have led to disqualification of bidders, if the tender provisions were read literally, did not lead to disqualification and RVNL allowed different bidders including the petitioner to submit the corrected affidavit. It was therefore requested that in similar manner the non-material clarifications in the Price Bid of the petitioner, which were already rectified, should be accepted. But Indwell did not receive any reply to this letter. Apprehensive of