IMPORTANT POINT
The court established that transparency in the tender process is essential, and failure to comply with statutory requirements can render the tender process invalid.

JUDGMENT :

C. KUMARAPPAN, J.

Prayer: Writ Appeals filed under Clause 15 of Letters Patent praying to set aside the order dated 05.03.2021 passed in W.P. Nos. 12286 & 14017 of 2020 respectively.

1. The instant intra-Court writ appeals are arising against the common order dated 05.03.2021 passed in WP.Nos.12286 & 14017 of 2020.

2. The appellants herein are the writ petitioners. The issues involved in WA.Nos.1104 & 1106 of 2021 are in respect of the allotment of Shop No. VN-124 and Shop No. VG-88 respectively in Koyambedu market, through a tender process.

3. The appellants have challenged the communication dated 06.08.2020, by and in which, both of them were informed about the cancellation of their Tender application.

4. The brief facts which are necessary to decide both the writ appeals are that, the first respondent-“Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority” [hereinafter shall be referred to as “CMDA” for the sake of convenience] has floated Tender on 28.11.2019 for the allotment of shop No. VN-124 and VG-88. The said Tender document contain instruction, which include method of conducting Tender and other terms and conditions. One of the specific condition of the Tender is that, the date of price bid opening, will be informed to the parties through Newspapers and in CMDA website. To put it differently, the Tender document did not contain the date as to when and where the tender applications will be opened.

5. In pursuance of the above Tender notification, the petitioners have submitted their respective Tender document on 07.01.2020. In the meanwhile, on 06.01.2020, an Addendum was issued requiring the applicants to submit certain further documents mentioned therein on or before 23.01.2020. It appears that the petitioners have submitted those documents as stipulated in the Addendum. Though they have submitted the required documents within the specified time frame, till August 2020, they were kept under dark and did not inform about the date of opening of the Tender. Hence, the petitioner in WA.No. 1104 of 2021 has sent letter dated 05.08.2020 to CMDA enquiring as to the stage of the Tender. Curiously on the next date qua 06.08.2020, CMDA has informed to the petitioners that their tender application was rejected in the pre-qualification process.

6. After receipt of the impugned communication dated 06.08.2020, the petitioners have raised as many as 12 queries under Right to Information Act. In the reply received from the Authorities for the RTI queries, the petitioners came to know about the awarding of Tender in favour of the respective 4th respondent, which necessitated the petitioners to challenge such awarding of Tender. Hence, the petitioners preferred the impugned writ petitions.

7. Resisting the above contention, the CMDA pleaded that in respect of Shop No. VN-124, out of 5 Tenderers, the 4th respondent-Karthik was the only eligible tenderer. They would further submit that the Tender application of writ petitioner-G.Mohan was rejected on the ground that lack of experience in a vegetable trade. According to CMDA, such decision is well within sub-clause 2 of Clause 32 of The Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Act, 1998, as the petitioner has failed in pre-qualification stage.

8. Similarly, in respect of Shop No. VG-88, out of 10 bidders, 5 of them have withdrawn their EMD, and among the remaining 5, only 2 of them viz., Chinnadurai, who is the 4th respondent in WA.No. 1106 of 2021 and one Mr.Aravinda Prabhu become eligible. However, Mr.Aravinda Prabhu has given a request to made over the Tender application in favour of one Mr.Jagan. In view of his such incongruous request, his Tender was rejected. Therefore, even for Shop No. VG-88 there was a lone eligible tenderer, who is none other than the 4th respondent-Mr.Chinnadurai. Therefore, the sum and substance of the contention of CMDA is that, though there were five bidders for shop No. VN-124 and, 10 bidders for Shop No. VG-88, at the end of the Tender process, there was only one eligi