JUDGMENT :

V.G. ARUN, J.

1. The petitioner, a proprietory concern, is engaged in the business of trading of industrial machinery, spare parts, ferrous and non-ferrous scrap etc. The respondent No. 2, a public sector undertaking under the administrative control of the Ministry of Steel, Government of India, acted as facilitator and conducted an e-auction of the scrapped ammonia and urea plants and other scraps of the first respondent. The e-auction was conducted based on Ext.P1 published in the website. The petitioner remitted Rs. 2 Crores towards Earnest Money Deposit and was allowed to participate in the e-auction conducted on 27.10.2016. The process of bidding was conducted in such a manner that the bidders were allowed to raise the bid by a minimum amount of Rs. 25,000/- within seven minutes of the previous bid. In the auction conducted on 27.10.2016, the bid amount kept on increasing and the petitioner was leading most of the time. But, by about 3.29 p.m. one of the bidders hiked the offer to an exorbitant amount of Rs. 230,07,50,001/- (Rupees Two Hundred Thirty Crores Seven Lakhs Fifty Thousand and One only). On a mistaken impression that the amount quoted by that bidder was Rs.