JUDGMENT :

N.S.SANJAY GOWDA, J.

[1] In these two writ petitions, the award of tender for designing and construction of Sewage Treatment Plant of 11.00 and 3.00 MLD, and also the designing and construction of various pumping stations along with allied works, awarded in favor of SNL & Company, is under challenge by two rival bidders whose bid has been rejected. The estimated contract value of this tender is about Rs.122.97 crores.

[2] Special Civil Application No.5436 of 2026 is filed by M/s R & B Infra Projects Limited (hereinafter referred to as “the R & B”), who are aggrieved by the rejection of their tender on the ground that the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that they had entered into with the owner of an asphalt plant was on a stamp paper of Rs.100/-, whereas the requirement of the tender was that it ought to have been on an MoU of Rs.300/-.

[3] After the bid was rejected on the aforementioned ground, a subsequent order has been passed by the Municipal Corporation to the effect that R & B had suppressed material facts in relation to its litigation history, despite a specific clause in the tender requiring that all litigations in the past five years be disclosed and this would also result in them being disqualified.

[4] Special Civil Application No.4647 of 2026 is filed by Yogi Construction Co., which is aggrieved by rejection of their tender by the Corporation on the ground that they had not complied with the six conditions of the tender, including the requirements of submission of a site visit certificate duly signed by the engineer, and that the MoU submitted by it was not in accordance with the format and requirement of the tender conditions.

[5] The following facts are not in dispute:-

[5.1] On 15.01.2026, the Corporation issued an invitation for bids in respect of the aforementioned work, i.e., designing and construction of a Sewage Treatment Plant, having an estimated contract value of about Rs.122.97 crores. The last date for submission of the bids was 23.02.2026 at 5:30 PM. One of the requirements for submission of the bids was that the bid was to be submitted online. However, one of the conditions of the tender was also that physical copies of the bid that had been submitted online was also required to be submitted to the Corporation.

[5.2] After the online submission, it was noticed by the R & B that out of the 139 pages, only 106 pages had been uploaded, as per the portal, and as a consequence R & B contacted the entity, and it was informed that the discrepancy was due to the manner in which the documents had been uploaded. It appears that the bidder was required to upload four to five documents at a time, wait for the message ‘files signed and saved successfully', and only thereafter could the next set of files be uploaded. Apparently, since R & B had not followed this procedure, the entire set of documents had not been uploaded.

[5.3] Clause 24 of the tender conditions required that all tender documents should also be submitted through speed post so as to reach the Municipal Corporation within seven working days from the last date. R & B had, in fact, submitted all the tender documents physically within the required time frame of seven days. However, R & B was informed that their tender submitted online would not be considered since all the documents had not been uploaded.

[5.4] The petitioner, as a consequence, approached this Court in Special Civil Application No.4641 of 2026, and this Court, by an order dated 01.04.2026, disposed of the writ petition directing the Corporation to consider the documents which R & B had physically submitted and thereafter take a decision on the bids submitted by R & B and also by the others, on their merits.

[5.5] The Corporation had, in fact, informed the Court that the tender had been opened, negotiations had been undertaken, and a work order had also been issued. It was, however, submitted before the Court that the said decision would be kept in abeyance till the case of R & B was