Compliance with tender conditions and eligibility criteria is crucial in technical bid disqualification cases, and the scope of judicial review in such matters is limited.

JUDGMENT

(Prayer: Appeal filed under Clause 15 of the Letters Patent against the order dated 07.12.2021 made in W.P.No.35845 of 2019.)

Munishwar Nath Bhandari, CJ

By this writ appeal, a challenge is made to the order dated 07.12.2021, by which, the writ petition preferred by the writ appellant was dismissed.

2. The writ petition was filed to challenge the order dated 10.12.2019 rejecting the technical bid of the writ appellant. The tender was invited by the first respondent for the grant of license for Smoking Lounge and Sale Kiosk at the Chennai Airport. Pursuant to the e-tender floated by the first respondent, the writ appellant, apart from the second respondent, submitted its technical bid. After the receipt of the tender documents from both the parties, the writ appellant was declared to be technically disqualified as it failed to submit no due certificate of all the previous projects.

3. The rejection of the technical bid was despite the writ appellant having satisfied the eligibility criteria as per Clause 10 of the Notice inviting e-tenders. Clause 10 states that a company was required to have experience of operating at least 3 Smoking Lounges at Indian Airports / 5 Star Hotels / Malls etc. or having experience of running at least 5 tobacco sales kiosk at two or more Airports in India.

4. The case of the writ appellant is that despite having experience of running three Smoking Lounges in different Airports and no due certificates of those Airports, namely the Airports at Agartala, Chennai and Indore, it was disqualified. The writ appellant was disqualified on the ground that it failed to submit no due certificates of all the Airports where it had operated Smoking Lounges, namely Airports at Goa and Bhopal.

5. According to the writ appellant, they had submitted all the relevant documents to the tender. However, it is only to benefit the second respondent, who was the remaining single bidder, the writ appellant was disqualified for the financial bid.

6. The challenge to the order of rejection of the technical bid of the writ appellant was not accepted by the learned Single Judge on the ground that it had failed to submit the required no due certificates and therefore, the action of the first respondent in rejecting the technical bid was justified.

7. It is also the case of the writ appellant that the rejection of the technical bid was made without giving an opportunity of hearing and therefore, on the aforesaid ground also, the order of rejection was unsustainable and it ought have been set aside by the learned Single Judge, with a direction to the first respondent to open the financial bid of the writ appellant.

8. The documents in respect of other Airports where the writ appellant operated the Smoking Lounges were produced, but ignored by the learned Single Judge.

9. Per contra, the writ appeal is seriously contested by the respondents. It is stated that the tender was floated to grant licence to run the Smoking Lounges and Sale Kiosk. The tender consisted of two stage process. First was technical bid and the second was financial bid. Subject to qualifying in the technical bid, the financial bid of the bidder is to be opened.

10. In the instant case, the writ appellant failed to submit no due certificates of all the Airports where they had operated Smoking Lounges. It is despite a specific direction in Clause (f) of the General Information and Guidelines pertaining to the tender that no due certificate of all Airports under its control was to be submitted. The writ appellant failed to submit no due certificates of Bhopal and Goa Airports and therefore, it was disqualified in the technical bid. No due certificates were submitted along with the writ petition. Thus, on the relevant date of submission of the tender, outstanding dues were existing against the writ appellant and for the aforesaid reason alone, no due certificates of Bhopal and Goa Airports were not submitted. Therefore, the technical bid of the writ appellant was rejecte