IMPORTANT POINT
The court upheld the debarment of the petitioner for failing to submit a performance guarantee on time, affirming the procedural fairness and adherence to the RFP guidelines.

JUDGMENT :

1. We have heard Sri Prashant Chandra, learned Senior Advocate assisted by Sri Anshuman Singh and Ms. Geetika Yadav, Advocates, for the petitioners and Sri Sanjay Bhasin, learned Senior Advocate, assisted by Sri Sarvesh Kumar Dubey, learned counsel for the respondents.

2. This Writ Petition, namely, Writ-C No. 8606 of 2024 has been filed by the petitioner arraying the National Highways Authority of India through its Chairman as the respondent No.1, and the Regional Officer, National Highways Authority of India, as the respondent no.2. The petitioner has challenged its debarment order dated 26.09.2024 and prayed for a mandamus to be issued to the respondents not to treat the petitioner as debarred from participating in future tenders and to allow it to participate in forthcoming tenders ignoring the impugned order dated 26.09.2024.

3. The brief facts of the case as disclosed in the writ petition and as argued by learned counsel for the petitioners are:-

A Notice Inviting e-Tender for commissioning of an Independent Engineering Service to supervise the operation and maintenance of 100.840 kms of six lanning of NH-24 from Hapur Bypass to Moradabad Section was uploaded on the website of N.H.A.I. on 23.12.2023. The Notice Inviting Tender is hereinafter referred to as “Request For Proposal (RFP)”. The last date for receiving queries was 07.01.2024. A pre-Bid meeting at a specified venue was to be held on 27.01.2024. The N.H.A.I. was to respond to the queries latest by 30.01.2024. The Technical bid and the Financial bids had to be uploaded with effect from 0000 hrs 06.02.2024 up to 1100 hrs. The opening of the Technical Bids was to be done on 07.02.2024 at 11 AM, and 5 bidders having highest number of technical points were to be shortlisted for opening of Financial bids. It is the case of the petitioner that it downloaded the RFP and participated in the pre bid meeting and submitted its Technical and Financial bid before 06.02.2024 in the format downloaded from the web portal, omitting to notice that a corrigendum was issued on 05.02.2024. It has been alleged that the firms which had been provided with the RFP were required to only fill up specific columns containing per item rate in Appendix-C to Section 5 of the RFP. The final calculation was to be done by the Tender Evaluation Committee on the basis of information submitted by the bidder. The Tender Evaluation Committee instead of adding Rs.1.39 crores mentioned by the petitioner in its financial bid against the column of Supporting Staff, added only Rs.7.80 lakhs which was with regard to salary of an Office boy. In view of this error of calculation committed by the Tender Evaluation Committee, instead of a total of Rs.6.08 crores, the financial bid was calculated at Rs.4.76 crores. As a significant part of expenditure on supporting staff had been omitted to be taken into consideration, the bid of Rs.4.76 crores was found to be the lowest and without further reference to the petitioner, the said financial proposal was forwarded to the Competent Authority for approval for award of tender. With the approval of the Competent Authority, a Letter of Acceptance was issued on 09.05.2024 by the respondent no.2. By the said letter the petitioner was required to confirm the availability of all key personnel and to accept, sign and return the duplicate Letter of Acceptance in acknowledgment thereof within seven days of issuance of such letter. It was also requested to furnish an unconditional Bank Guarantee from a nationalized bank for an amount equivalent to 3% of the total contract value, being Rs.14,30,099/-within 15 days from the date of issuance of the Letter of Acceptance.

4. It has been argued by Sri Prashant Chandra that in view of the timelines indicated in the Letter of Acceptance, it is clear that submission of Bank guarantee was to follow a formal acknowledgment by signing of the Letter of Acceptance. This Letter of Acceptance further stipulated that upon submission of requ