The judgment establishes the importance of strict compliance with mandatory conditions in a contract, the distinction between essential and ancillary conditions, and the limited scope of judicial intervention in contractual matters involving technical evaluation.

JUDGMENT :

1. Vide e-NIT No. 11 of 2023-24 dated 03-06-2023, e-tenders were invited from approved and eligible contractors for construction of link road from Bus Stand Ukhral to Rahoon Top under NABARD-RIDF XXVIII. The petitioner along with other contractors, including respondent No.4, submitted their e-bids. Apart from completing various formalities enumerated in the bid document, the contractors seeking consideration were also supposed to upload scanned copies of various documents including a statement showing the value of existing commitments and ongoing works as well as the statutory period of completion remaining for each of the works listed, duly countersigned by the Engineer-in-Charge not below the rank of Executive Engineer or equivalent [2.2.2 (5) of Section 2 of the bidding document].

2. The petitioner claims that he had substantially complied, inter alia, with the aforesaid requirements. The technical bids submitted by all the contractors including the petitioner and respondent No.4 were evaluated by the Technical Evaluation Committee in the office of the Chief Engineer PWD (R&B) Jammu. Apart from others the technical bid submitted by the petitioner came to be rejected by the Technical Evaluation Committee on the following grounds:-

(i) The bidder has not uploaded the undertaking in accordance with Clause 2.2.1 of SBD.

(ii) The certificate of existing commitments uploaded by the bidder is not in accordance with clause 2.2.1(5) of SBD.

3. On the other hand, the two bids, one by the respondent No.4 and one by M/S Ghulam Qadir Natnoo were found responsive. Since the Respondent-Chief Engineer had, while declaring the technical evaluation result, given opportunity to the aggrieved bidders to file objections within a period of two days of the date of uploading of the result, as such, the petitioner submitted his objections to the manner in which his bid stood rejected by the Technical Evaluation Committee. The objections were submitted by the petitioner on 08-06-2023. It was the plea taken by the petitioner that he had uploaded the requisite undertaking as also the list of ongoing projects and the details thereof. The petitioner also made an allegation that respondents had declared “responsive” similarly situated contractors who too had uploaded their documents exactly in the manner it had been done by the petitioner. The respondent-Chief Engineer considered the objections raised by the petitioner and vide his communication No. CEJ/TS/9748 dated 12-07-2023 rejected the same as meritless and baseless. The petitioner was informed that he had uploaded one statement in which he had clearly shown three existing commitments but had only got one ongoing work duly countersigned by the concerned Executive Engineer. No information with respect to the rest of the two ongoing works, certified/countersigned by the Executive Engineer was uploaded in the bid by the petitioner. The petitioner even served a legal notice but the same was also disposed of by the respondent-Chief Engineer vide its communication No. CEJ/TS/10161 dated 14-07-2023 on the same grounds. The objection of the petitioner in respect of the bids too was dealt with and communicated to the petitioner vide the aforesaid communication.

4. After having rejected the objections filed by the petitioner, the price bid was opened and respondent No.4, being the lowest bidder, was allotted the work in question by Chief Engineer, PWD(R&B) Jammu, vide communication No. CEJ/TS/10162-66 dated 15-07-2023. The respondent No.4 having executed the formal agreement has already commenced the execution of the work.

5. The petitioner is aggrieved of rejection of his technical bid and also the acceptance of non-responsive bid of the respondent No.4 followed by allotment of contract in favour of respondent No.4. The petitioner seeks inter alia a writ of certiorari to quash the technical evaluation result dated 08-07-2023 issued by respondent No.2 and also allotment order dated 15-07-2023 issued by r