JUDGMENT :

KALYAN RAI SURANA, J.

1. Heard Mr. K.N. Choudhury, learned senior counsel, assisted by Mr. M.K. Das, learned counsel for the appellant. Also heard Mr. P.K. Tiwari, learned senior counsel, assisted by Mr. A.R. Gogoi, learned counsel for respondent nos. 2 to 5. None appears on call for the respondent nos. 1 and 6.

Case of the petitioner:

2. By filing this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioner has prayed for a direction to cancel/revoke/rescind/set aside (i) the “Tender Evaluation Committee” (TEC for short) Report dated 10.12.2022, and (ii) the work order dated 28.12.2022, issued by the authorities of NHPC Ltd. in favour of respondent no. 6 in respect of the tender titled “River Bank Protection/Erosion Control Measures on the Left Bank of River Subansiri adjacent to Village Gerki-2 (RD 29KM-30KM)” bearing tender ID: 2022-NHPC-705866-1. The petitioner has also prayed for declaring the bid of the petitioner to be the only responsive bid and to direct the respondent authorities to allot the work to the petitioner in respect of NIT dated 05.08.2022.

3. In brief, the case of the petitioner is that being qualified, it had participated in the hereinbefore referred tender floated by the NHPC Limited. Out of 11 (eleven) bidders including the petitioner, who had participated in the tender process, 1 (one) bidder was disqualified in the pre-bid stage and 8 (eight) other bidders were disqualified during the techno-commercial bid stage. Thus, only the petitioner and the private respondent no. 6 remained as the qualified bidders in the techno-commercial bid stage. As per the work order dated 28.12.2022, impugned in this writ petition, the respondent no. 6 was the lowest bidder. Accordingly, the petitioner is challenging the qualification of the respondent no. 6 in the techno-commercial bid by projecting that the respondent no. 6 was initially disqualified due to want of document. However, in a most arbitrary and grossly illegal manner, the TEC had granted an opportunity to the respondent no. 6 to produce documents relating to Employee Provident Fund (EPF for short) registration, which is alleged to be in violation of clauses 2, 3.2, 17 and 18 of the NIT as the said document was accepted after the last date of submission of the bid. Thus, it is the case of the petitioner that it is the only successful bidder at the techno-commercial stage. Accordingly, the petitioner claims that the bid of the respondent no. 6 was required to be treated as non-responsive bid and the petitioner was entitled to be awarded with the contract work as a responsive bidder.

Submission on behalf of the petitioner:

4. In course of his submissions, the learned senior counsel for the petitioner has extensively referred to various clauses of the “Information to Bidders” (ITB for short), appended to the “Notice Inviting Tender” (NIT for short) with emphasis on clauses 2.1, 2.1.(b), 3, 3.2.A.(b), 3.2.B.(i), 8, 16.1, 16.4, 17, 18.1, 18.4 as well as clause 7.1(iv), 7.1(v) of the “Contracts Manual for Civil Works and Services Contract (Volume 1), 2020 of the NHPC” (hereinafter referred to as “NHPC Manual 2020” for brevity).

5. It was submitted that although amendment of the bid document was permissible, however, it could be done before the closing date of submission of bids without altering the bid amount. Accordingly, it has been submitted that although under clause 16.4 of the ITB, the tendering authority had the power to seek a document even after the last date of submission of bid, but by following such procedure, it was not permissible for the tendering authority to make a non-responsive bid to a responsive bid.

6. The learned senior counsel for the petitioner has submitted that as one of the bid document, Brahmaputra Infrastructure Ltd. (respondent no. 6) had submitted EPF registration certificate of Brahmaputra Consortium Limited which was a different entity, for which the respondent no. 6 was liable to be declared as non-responsiv