JUDGMENT :

Manish Choudhury, J.

1. The present writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India has been preferred by the petitioners on being aggrieved by the impugned communication bearing no. RE/457 (VC)/PT-II/2019-20/80 dt. 11.3.2020 whereby the petitioners had been informed that the Technical Evaluation Committee had rejected the bid of the petitioners upon examination of the Qualification Criteria of the bids received in response to a Request for Proposal dated 04.01.2020. By this writ petition, the petitioners have sought for setting aside of the impugned communication dated 11.03.2020 and also for a direction to allow the petitioners' bid for further consideration on merits.

2. The impugned communication is relatable to a Request for Proposal ('RFP', for short) published by the office of the respondent no. 3 i.e. the Additional Director General of Police (Communication), Assam [ADGP(C), Assam, for short] on 04.01.2020 for "Selection of a System Integrator for Supply, Installation, Testing and Commissioning of Video Conferencing Equipments up to Police Stations level in Assam".

3. It is the case of the petitioners that the petitioner no. 1 company (hereinafter referred to as 'the petitioner company', for easy reference) is involved in the business of design, development, manufacturing of RF and MW products and provides services in telecom and IT infrastructure including video conferencing and the petitioner no. 2 is the authorized official of the petitioner no. 1 company. As under the RFP submission of bid was permitted to be filed by a Consortium it intended to participate in the competitive bidding process initiated by the said RFP as a Consortium with the petitioner company as the Prime Bidder and one M/s. Millennium Automation & Systems Ltd. as the Consortium partner and accordingly, it obtained the bidding document.

4. As per the original RFP published on 04.01.2020, the date of issuance of RFP was started from 07.01.2020 and the last date for submission of queries for clarification to be sent through e-mail was 23.01.2020. The said RFP had also mentioned that a Pre-Bid Meeting would be held on 27.01.2020. The last date and time for submission of bid including its hard copy was up to 3-00 p.m., 13.02.2020.

5. The RFP document had laid down certain Qualification Criteria. According to the petitioners company, Clause-3.II of Qualification Criteria is of import as it mentioned about experience of similar assignments. When the RFP was published on 04.01.2020, the Qualification Criteria mentioned in Clause 3. II with regard to experience of similar nature were as follows:- (a) the Bidder/Prime Bidder in case of Consortium should have executed atleast two projects on Video Conferencing of similar nature in the Government Department (Centre, State, PSU, Public Sector Banks) in last 5 (five) years; and (b) the Bidder/Prime Bidder in case of Consortium should have executed atleast one project on Video Conferencing of similar nature in the Government Department (Centre, State, PSU, Public Sector Banks) in last 5 (five) years covering minimum 50 full FID Video Conferencing end points.

6. It was further mentioned in the RFP that the bidder as supporting evidence had to provide completion certificates or relevant work orders from competent authority listing type of services offered. In the RFP, Form-1 had provided for a Compliance Sheet for Pre-Qualification Format wherein it was stipulated that the Pre-Qualification Proposal should comprise of the basic requirements provided therein and the documents mentioned in the compliance sheet along with Format-1 needed to be a part of the Pre-Qualification Proposal.

7. The Pre-Bid Meeting was held with the participation of the intending bidders on 27.1.2020, as scheduled, wherein a number of queries were raised and discussed. A meeting of the Technical Evaluation Committee in