The experience of sister concerns cannot be considered in tender evaluations, reinforcing the necessity of adhering strictly to bid criteria to prevent arbitrary actions by State entities.

JUDGMENT :

A.S. SUPEHIA, J.

1. Both the captioned writ petitions arise out of the tender issued by the respondent No.1 - GSPC Pipavav Power Company Ltd. (GSPC) (hereinafter referred to as “the respondent No.1 - GSPC Company”), on 13.01.2025, inviting online bids from the interested Indian Bidders for “Operation and Maintenance” of GPPC’s Combined Cycle Power Plant for a period of five years at Village Kovaya, near Pipavav, Taluka Rajula, District Amreli, Gujarat.

BRIEF FACTS:-

2. The GSPC issued the tender on 13.01.2025, inviting online bids for their Operation and Maintenance of power plants for a period of 5 years. The last date of submission of bid was 11.04.2025 and the petitioner, along with three others, submitted their bids. The financial proposals for the 1st year of the Operation and Maintenance Cost were submitted by the Bidders on 07.05.2025. Thereafter, the GSPC evaluated the technical marks of the bidders as per the recitals of the bid document and found three bidders qualified, having obtained 60 marks - the petitioner, the respondent Nos.2 and 3. The Letter of Award “LOA’ was awarded to the respondent No.3 – STEAG Energy Services (INDIA) Pvt. Ltd., (hereinafter referred to as “the respondent No.3 – STEAG”), on 09.06.2025, and subsequently, the contract was also executed and STEAG mobilized its manpower from 01.07.2025.

3. The captioned writ petition, being Special Civil Application No.7289 of 2025, was initially placed before the Vacation Bench, whereupon the notice was issued on 23.05.2025, making it returnable on 19.06.2025. During the pendency of the writ petition, since the respondent No.3- STEAG was awarded LOA, the prayers in the writ petition were amended.

4. When the matter was placed before the regular bench, vide order dated 01.08.2025, upon the submissions advanced on behalf of the petitioner on the allocation of deficit marks on Item No.3 of Clause 20.2 B of the bid document and finding merit in their submissions, and since the learned advocate Mr.Aspi M. Kapadia, appearing for GSPC agreed to the re- evaluation of the marks through its consultant - Fichtner Consulting Engineers (India) Pvt. Ltd., accordingly, we directed the consultant to prepare a fresh report on the allocation of marks after hearing the respective parties.

5. This Court in the order dated 01.08.2025 had clarified that the award of contract to the respondent No.3 - STEAG was made subject to further orders of this Court.

6. Pursuant to the order dated 19.08.2025 passed by this Court in the captioned writ petition being Special Civil Application No.7289 of 2025, after hearing the petitioner and the respondent No.3-STEAG, a detailed report dated 14.08.2025 was placed on record by way of an affidavit filed by the respondent No.1 – GSPC Company.

7. It is pertinent to note that the respondent No.3 - STEAG during the hearing before the consultant demanded extra 5 marks for Item No.4 of Clause 20.2 B. It has been recorded by the consultant in the report that upon re-evaluation, the earlier 10 marks allocated to the respondent No.3 - STEAG were reduced to 8 marks based on the documents, and the claim for an additional 5 marks was rejected. As a result, the total technical score of both the petitioner and the respondent No.3 has been assessed as 93.

8. Since the marks of the respondent No.3-STEAG got reduced by two, on the basis of such report, it filed the cap