Bidders must ensure timely submission of bids and cannot shift blame to technical glitches experienced at the last moment.

JUDGMENT

Vipin Sanghi, J. (ORAL)--The petitioner has preferred the present writ petition to seek a direction to the respondent North Delhi Municipal Corporation (Nr.DMC) to allow the petitioner to submit its financial bid, and after the same is submitted, for its consideration along with other financial bids received by the respondent in respect of the tender Reference No. D/PM (Elect.)/TC/2021-22/ floated by the respondent, for providing Facility Management Services (FMS) to Dr. Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Civic Centre at J.L.N. Marg for a period of three years, i.e. 2021-24.

2. The case of the petitioner is that the petitioner is an established player in the field of providing FMS and has been offering its services to various Government bodies. The respondent Nr.DMC floated the aforesaid tender on 22.07.2021. The bids were required to be submitted electronically on the web portal www.tenderwizard.com/NORTHDMCETENDER. The last date for submission of the bids initially notified was 09.08.2021 up to 15:30 hours. However, on 06.08.2021, the tender closing date was extended to 16.08.2021 up to 15:30 hours.

3. The case of the petitioner is that since the petitioner was interested in participating in the tender in question, the petitioner successfully uploaded its Technical Bid on 16.08.2021. However, when the petitioner attempted to upload its Financial Bid, the petitioner experienced a technical glitch on the portal of the respondent, i.e. www.tenderwizard.com/NORTHDMCETENDER. The petitioner was required to, firstly, upload a Summary Sheet as part of the Financial Bid. The said Summary Sheet - though uploaded, showed wrong figures and the summary sheet was not found to be matching with the BOQ Line Items. In this regard, the petitioner even sent an e-mail to the respondent at 15:18 hours on 16.08.2021. The petitioner then contacted the respondents and the respondent asked the petitioner to continue to upload its Financial Bid and not to worry about the apparent error. However, subsequent to that, the petitioner was not able to upload its Financial Bid, as each time the petitioner tried to submit its Financial Bid, a pop-up message emerged which stated "Bid uploaded by Department is altered". The petitioner claims that, once again, the IT support officers of the respondents were contacted, but despite repeated attempts even at their end, the petitioner's Financial Bid could not be uploaded by the closing time, which was 15:30 hours on 16.08.2021. Consequently, at 15:42 hours, the petitioner sent an e- mail to the respondent, calling upon the respondent to grant one day's extension to the petitioner to submit its Financial Bid. Since the respondents did not reply to the said e-mail, and also to a further reminder sent by the petitioner, the petitioner has preferred the present writ petition.

4. The submission of Mr. Neeraj Kishan Kaul, learned senior counsel for the petitioner is that the petitioner cannot be made to suffer for no fault of its. It was a glitch in the respondent's web portal, which led to the petitioner's inability in uploading the Financial Bid. He submits that when the summary sheet was uploaded, the same showed an error as it was not matching with the BOQ Line Items. The respondents acknowledged this mistake when contacted, and asked the petitioner to continue to submit/ upload the Financial Bid. Mr. Kaul submits that there is no reason why the petitioner would not uplo