R. SUBRAMANIAN, J.

1. The challenge in these intra-Court appeals is to the common order of the learned Single Judge made in W.P.Nos.32289 and 32290 of 2016, in and by which, the learned Single judge had allowed the Writ Petitions quashing the rejection of tenders of the petitioners therein and directing the appellant to consider the financial bids of the respondent and evaluate them along with other tenderers before awarding the contract in question.

The facts led to the filing of the Writ Petitions are as follows:

2. The appellant in the Writ Appeals viz., The Tamil Nadu Police Housing Corporation Limited had issued a tender notification on 29.06.2016 inviting tenders for construction of 1036 numbers of PC/HC Quarters with development works at Cochin House in Chennai City for a value of Rs.13679.46 Lakhs. Under the very same tender notification, applications were also invited for construction of another 596 numbers of PC/HC quarters at Pudupet with development works for the Armed Reserve Police in Chennai for a value of Rs.8132.67 Lakhs. As per the tender notification dated 29.06.2016, the technical bids were to be opened on 28.07.2016.

3. It is claimed by the respondent that the respondent which is a Class I contractor registered with the Government of Tamil Nadu had submitted its tenders. There were in all five tenderers for the first work viz., construction of 1036 quarters and four tenderers for the second work viz., construction of 596 quarters. The tender notification also disclosed that the bids will be evaluated at two stages viz., the technical evaluation and the financial evaluation. The entire tender process was to be done online and e-tender documents were to be uploaded by the tenderers.

4. The respondent would claim that it had uploaded all the required documents while submitting its bids for both the works. The technical bids were opened on 28.07.2016. The respondent, subsequently discovered that there has been a mistake in uploading the affidavit which was sought for by the appellant. In order to rectify the defect, the respondent had submitted the original affidavit to the appellant on 11.08.2016. Subsequently, by a letter dated 19.08.2016, the appellant raised certain queries and those queries were also answered by the respondent.

5. While things stood thus, the respondent received a communication dated 29.08.2016, informing the respondent that the pre-qualification tender documents submitted by the respondent were under scrutiny. To the shock and surprise of the respondent on 30.08.2016, the respondent received an e-mail informing the respondent that its bids were rejected even during the technical evaluation done by the Tender Awarding Committee on 30.08.2016 at the pre-qualification stage. Since, the e-mail dated 30.08.2016 did not disclose any reason for rejection of its bids, the respondent by its letter dated 01.09.2016 required the appellant to assign reasons for rejecting its bid. The price bids also came to be opened on 01.09.2016.

6. Claiming that the appellant attempted to award the contract after having wrongly rejected the bids of the respondent, the respondent has approached this Court challenging the action of the appellant in rejecting the bids of the respondent. The respondent was informed by a communication dated 06.09.2016 that the appellant was not bound to assign any reasons for rejecting the bids of the respondent at the technical evaluation stage. However, the appellant also added that the respondent Company had not complied with the terms and conditions relating to the pre-qualifications incorporated at page 29 of the tender document.

7. This Court had ordered status quo on the award of the contracts on 15.09.2016. The appellant corporation filed a counter affidavit contending that the respondent having failed to comply with the conditions incorporated in the tender notification cannot be heard to contend that they should be given an opportunity to rectify the defects. As per the co