IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that fairness and transparency in the bidding process are essential, and any rejection of bids must be based on the criteria set forth in the bid documents.

JUDGMENT :

Heard Mr. P. J. Saikia, the learned senior counsel assisted by Mr. A. K. Gupta, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioner in WP(C) No.1496/2024 and Mr. S. Borthakur, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the petitioners in WP(C) No.1384/2024 and WP(C) No.1385/2024. Mr. K. P. Pathak, the learned standing counsel appears on behalf of the Excise Department of the Government of Assam and Mr. K. Agarwal, the learned senior counsel assisted by Mr. M. Das, the learned counsel appears on behalf of the private respondents in WP(C) No.1385/2024 and WP(C) No.1496/2024 as well as Mr. N. Deka, the learned counsel appears on behalf of the private respondent in WP(C) No.1384/2024.

2. All the three writ petitions are taken up together taking into account that the issues involved in the writ petitions, i.e. WP(C) No.1384/2024 and WP(C) No.1385/2024 are similar and the issue involved in WP(C) No.1385/2024 is interconnected with WP(C) No.1496/2024.

3. The material facts which arise for consideration is that a Notice Inviting E-Bids was issued on 29.11.2023 by the District Collector, Tinsukia District thereby inviting shop-wise electronic bids (E-Bids) for grant of Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) Retail ‘Off’ Licenses in the district of Tinsukia at the locations mentioned in the list of shops contained in the E-Bid document.

4. At this stage, it is very pertinent to mention that the bid documents in its draft form was addressed to the District Collector, Tinsukia by the Commissioner of Excise, Assam vide the communication dated 18.09.2023 with the direction that the required data may be filled pertaining to the district after finalization of the Date-Sheet as provided at Page No.7 of the draft bid documents. In pursuance thereto, the bid document was published in the website https://assamtenders.gov.in. In the said bid documents, there are various conditions stipulated. Clause 2 of the said bid document stipulates the eligibility required for participation in the bidding. The relevant portion of Clause-2 is extracted below:-

“2. OVERVIEW OF ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENT FOR PARTICIPATION IN BIDDING

An individual, a partnership firm, a limited liability partnership (LLP) or a company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 or subsequent enactments who has proof of filing Income Tax Returns-for the three financial years out of the last four financial years (2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23) duly certified by a Chartered Accountant, is eligible to participate in the bid.”

5. From a perusal of the above extracted portion of the Clause-2, it would be seen that an individual, a partnership firm, a limited liability partnership (LLP) or a Company registered under the Companies Act, 1956 or subsequent enactment who has proof of filing Income Tax Returns for the three financial years, out of the last four financial years, i.e. 2019-20; 2020-21; 2021-22 and 2022-23 duly certified by a Chartered Accountant is eligible to participate in the bid. The effect of the above extracted portion of Clause 2 of the bid document would be seen in Clause 6 which stipulates what the technical bid should consist of. Amongst the various documents which have been enlisted, one of such document is “copy of Income Tax Returns along with Balance Sheets for the year 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and 2022-23 (any three years in sequence) and the statement of ‘net worth’ as certified by a Chartered Accountant”. Therefore, it would be seen that the requirement of the said documents has a direct correlation with the eligibility criteria. In addition to that, it is also very relevant to mention that amongst the very other documents as mandated in Clause 6 of the tender documents, the bidder has also to submit a duly filled up Application Form as per Annexure-A.

6. A perusal of the Annexure-A would show that various details are required to be filled in. Clause 12 of Annexure-A stipulates filing in details of bank account(s) and proof to be submitted In the said