The main legal point established in the judgment is the importance of fulfilling eligibility criteria for accepting bids and the relevance of the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 in regulating food business operations.

1. As per New Catering Policy, 2010, the Divisional Railway Manager (Commercial), Southern Railway/the second respondent herein, invited sealed bids on single stage two packet system from food and catering service providers for provisions of catering services at major static units at various stations including Salem vide Bid No.SA/C79/CATG/MAJ/TENDER dated 02.04.2013, in respect of Salem Division for Vegetarian and Non-vegetarian Refreshment Room, quoting the minimum reserved price.

2. Pursuant to the above, the 4th respondent processed his tender, which was selected as qualified and he was called for technical bid on 17.11.2013 and thereafter, he was declared as successful bidder in respect of Non-vegetarian Refreshment Room at Salem Platform No.3/4. When the license was about to be issued in favour of the 4th respondent, the petitioner herein, who is the existing licensee and whose license has already expired on 30.10.2013, has filed the present writ petition and got interim stay, restraining the second respondent from proceeding further. The matter, is thus, stood there.

3. While so, the case of the petitioner is that earlier her husband, Late Narayanan Nair was granted license to run Non-vegetarian light refreshment stall and Non-vegetarian refreshment room at Salem Junction Railway station and he maintained the same from 1958 onwards by getting the license renewed from time to time. In the year 1998, husband of the petitioner expired and thereafter, the license was given to the petitioner and she maintained both veg and non-veg refreshments till 2010. Later, the second respondent invited the tenders as stated above, for which, the petitioner also submitted her bid with all requisite documents along with EMD.

However, she came to know that her bid was rejected while the bid of the 4th respondent was accepted.

4. Questioning the acceptance of the bid of the 4th respondent by the second respondent, the petitioner has come forward with the present writ petition. Along with the writ petition, the petitioner has also filed MP Nos. 1 and 2 of 2013, for a direction to the second respondent to permit the petitioner to run the canteens and also for grant of interim stay to restrain the second respondent to finalize the tender process of the 4th respondent. By order, dated 25.10.2013, this Court granted interim stay.

5. The 3rd respondent has filed a counter affidavit, inter alia, stating that all the tenders were considered and scrutinized by a duly constituted tender committee in accordance with terms of the tender and guidelines governing the same and found that one S.K.Rathinavelu, Madhukar Catering is having all requisite eligibility and thus, he became successful bidder. The petitioner has not satisfied the eligibility criteria of having an annual turnover of Rs.50 lakhs during each of the preceding 5 years and also did not possess the financial standing of Rs.20 lakhs during each of the last preceding 5 years and accordingly, they rejected the bid of the petitioner.

6. Mr.S.Kalyanaraman, learned counsel appearing for the petitioner would contend that the second respondent has accepted the bid of the 4th respondent in violation of the terms of the tender, which admittedly, the 4th respondent has not fulfilled. The learned counsel contended that the eligibility norms relating to possessing of a minimum five years of catering business experience and minimum annual turnover of Rs.50 lakhs for each of the preceding five years, were not satisfied by the 4th respondent and that the 2nd respondent was not justified in evaluating the defective bid of the 4th respondent. The second respondent ought to have considered the petitioner for financial bid being eligible since the petitioner is having vast experience in the catering business, i.e. for the decades together and she satisfied the norms of annual minimum turnover.

7. On the other hand, while reiterating the averments of the counter affidavit filed by the 4th respondent,