The court emphasized the need for compliance with bid document requirements and upheld the authority's decision in the absence of malafide or arbitrariness.

JUDGMENT :

Manoj K. Tiwari, J.

By means of this writ petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, petitioner has sought the following relief’s:-

"I. to issue a writs/orders/directions quashing the allotment of tender with respect to '.Guptkashi-Kedarnath' route for operating helicopter services pursuant to the RFP dated 5/2/20019;

II. to issue a writs in the nature of mandamus or any other writs/orders/ directions directing the Respondents to reconsider the technical eligibility of Petitioner to bid for the tender and allot tender to the Petitioner, subject to satisfying the financial bid requirements."

2. Facts of the case, in brief are as follows:-

Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority (respondent no. 2) invited bids in two bid system for award of contract for providing helicopter shuttle service on the following routes in State of Uttarakhand:-

(i) Guptakashi-Kedarnath.

(ii) Phata-Kedarnath.

(iii) Sirsi-Kedarnath.

(iv) Kedarnath-Badrinath.

(v) Govindghant-Ghngaria.

3. Petitioner, which is a Company engaged in the business of carrying on Non Scheduled Air Operations, submitted bid in response to the notice inviting tender issued by respondent no. 2. Total 11 bids were received including that of the petitioner. The bids were opened on 10.05.2019 and the bid submitted by two bidders, namely, petitioner and Dhillan Aviation Pvt. Ltd. were rejected as technically non responsive and contract was awarded to other successful bidders. Thus, feeling aggrieved, petitioner has approached this Court seeking quashing of award of contract with respect to Guptkashi-Kedarnath route and to re-consider his technical eligibility to bid for the tender and to award contract to him, subject to his satisfying financial bid requirements.

4. According to Mr. B.C. Pande, learned Senior Counsel, petitioner was an existing operator in Guptkashi-Kedarnath route and he operated helicopter services for the year 2018 to the satisfaction of authorities concerned and respondent no. 2 had also issued NOC to him. He further submits that, as per the summary report generated on the online portal of the e-procurement system of Government of Uttarakhand, the status of petitioner's bid submission as on 09.05.2019 was shown as "accepted and fee/pre-qualification/technically", however on 10.05.2019, at about 03:45 p.m. Petitioner learnt through an auto generated e-mail sent by respondent no. 2 that his bid has been rejected as "technically non responsive". He further submits that no reason for rejecting his technical bid was assigned to the petitioner despite repeated requests, which resulted in denial of opportunity to him to provide clarification or cure any defect in order to participate in the financial bid. It is further submitted that the financial bids were opened physically in gross violation of the rules, which permit only e-opening of the e-tender. It is further submitted that some of the successful bidders do not fulfill the technical eligibility criteria laid down in the bid document. It is further submitted that one Mr. Satyendra Rawat, Quality Controller in UCADA (respondent no. 2) could not have evaluated the bid of the petitioner, as he was earlier an employee of one of the successful bidder, namely, Arrow Aircraft Sales and Charters Pvt. Ltd. and had joined UCADA as a contractual employee two days prior to the evaluation of the technical bid. It is further stated that petitioner fulfills all the eligibility criteria and he was wrongly disqualified in order to favour other bidders.

5. Separate counter affidavits have been filed by the respondents. Respondent no. 2 in paragraph no. 3 of his counter affidavit has given reasons for declaring petitioner's technical bid as non responsive, which are as follows:-

(i) Petitioner had not submitted bid security in the form as prescribed in Appendix-6 of the bid document.

(ii) Petitioner had submitted scanned copy of bank draft in respect of the Tender Fees and Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) and the original