The main legal point established is that state actions, including contractual matters, must be informed by reason and fairness, and any action uninformed by reason is arbitrary and unconstitutional.

JUDGMENT

Subramonium Prasad, J. The instant writ petition has been filed under Article 226 seeking directions to the Respondent to process and open the Petitioner's bid already available with the Respondent with respect to the Notice Inviting Offer (NIO) dated 10.06.2021 issued by the Respondent for "The Development of Small Oil & Gas Fields in India under Discovered Small Field Policy", Bid Round-III (2021).

2. The facts, in brief, leading to the instant petition are as under:

a) It is stated that an NIO was issued on 10.06.2021 by the Respondent with respect to "The Development of Small Oil & Gas Fields in India under Discovered Small Field Policy", Bid Round-III (2021). The original date of bid submission was 29.10.2021 at 12:00 hours, but the same was extended and revised to 31.05.2022 at 12:00 hours. As the bid was to be submitted in a single-stage two-envelope methodology, the technical bid (comprising of bidder information) was to be submitted both online as well as with a hard copy (as per Section 3, point XII of the NIO), and the financial bid was to be submitted only via the online portal.

b) Clause IV of the NIO lays down the Bid Qualifying Criteria. The same has been reproduced as under:

"IV. BID QUALIFYING CRITERIA

1. Payment of Tender Fees must be made, by bidding company or any member of the consortium, by way of purchase of the requisite Information Docket for Onshore and/or Offshore Contract Areas to be bid as the case may be, on or before bid closing date. (Please refer Price List).

2. The bidder must be a company singly or in association with other companies, through an unincorporated or incorporated venture.

3. The net worth of the bidding company(s) should be equal to or more than its Participating Interest value of the Work Programme commitment, provided that every company should have a minimum net worth of US $ 1 million. The net worth will be calculated in accordance with the method given in the `FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION OF BIDS'. If a bidding company either bidding alone or in a consortium is a domestic company and does not have adequate net worth as mentioned above or its networth is negative, it may submit a bank guarantee (BG) to fulfil its net worth requirement as above, along with the bid in the format prescribed in Annexure-I. The validity of BG shall be One (01) year from date of bid closing. The BG can be submitted for the whole networth requirement or in partial fulfilment of the same. In such cases, the negative networth will not be considered. The bank guarantee of unsuccessful bidders will be released on signing of contract with the successful bidder for the Contract Area. The BG for successful bidders will be released upon submission of the BG against Liquidated Damages (LD) as per Article 27 of MRSC.

4. The annual report including the audited annual accounts for the latest completed year and a Certificate of net-worth from company's statutory auditor(s) based on the audited annual accounts for the latest completed year certifying the net-worth of the bidding company should be submitted. In case the parent company provides financial and performance guarantee, the annual report, annual accounts and networth certificate in respect of parent company should be submitted and the financial capability of the parent company shall be considered for evaluating the financial capability of a bidding company. In such cases, the parent company of the successful bidder will be required to provide the financial and performance guarantee as per the provisions of MRSC." (emphasis supplied)

c) Certain parameters have also been laid down with regard to evaluation of the bids in Clause VI of the NIO. They are listed as under:

"VI. BID EVALUATION CRITERIA

The following main parameters will be considered while evaluating the bids:

1. The bidding companies should have adequate net worth. The net worth will be calculated in accordance with the method given in the "FORMAT FOR SUBMISSION OF BIDS". The net worth of every participa