Joint Venture Agreements must establish joint and several liabilities; non-compliance results in bid rejection.

1. Respondent South Eastern Coal Fields Limited (S. E. C. L.) issued N. I. T. dated 16-1-2010 for construction of a Coal Handling Plant (civil and structural work) at Khairaha project of Sohagpur area. Clause 23(a) of the NIT deals with the information relating to the tenderers. Clause 23(a)(V) deals with the Joint Venture, which reads as under :
Joint Venture
Two or three companies / contractors participating in the tender as Joint Venture should submit firm - wise participation details, banker's name, execution of work with details of contribution of each and all other relevant details.
Notes : Joint Venture must comply the following requirements:
(i) Following are the minimum qualification requirements for joint ventures:
(a) The qualifying criteria parameter e.g. experience, financial resources etc. of the individual partners of the J. V. will be added together and the total criteria should not be less than as spelt out in qualification.
(ii) The formation of joint venture or change in the joint venture character partners after submission of the bid and any change in the bidding regarding joint venture will not be permitted.
(iii) Any bid shall be signed so as to legally bind all partners jointly and severally and any bid shall be submitted with a copy of the Joint Venture Agreement (JV Agreement) providing the joint and several liabilities with respect to the contract.
(iv) The pre - qualification of a joint venture does not necessarily pre - qualify any of its partners individually or as a partner in any other joint venture or association. In case of dissolution of a joint venture, each one of the constitutent firms may pre - qualify if they meet all the pre - qualification requirements, subject to written approval of the employer.
(v) The bid submission must include documentary evidence to the relationship between joint venture partners in the form of JB Agreement to legally bind all partners jointly and severally for the proposed agreement which should set out the principles for the constitution, operation, responsibilities regarding work and financial arrangements, participation (percentage share in the total) and liabilities (joint and several) in respect of each and all of the firms in the joint venture. Such JB Agreement must evidence the commitment of the parties to bid for the facilities applied for (if prequalified) and to execute the contract for the facilities if their bid is successful.
(vi) One of the partners responsible for performing a key component of the contract shall be designated as Lead Partner. This authorization shall be evidenced by submitting with the bid a Power of Attorney signed by legally authorized signatories of all the partners.
(vii) The JV Agreement must provide that the Lead Partner shall be authorized to incur liabilities and receive instructions for and on behalf of any and all partners of the Joint Venture and the entire execution of the contract shall be done with active participation of the Lead Partner.
(viii) The contract agreement should be signed jointly by each Joint Ventures Partners.
(ix) An entity can be a partner in only one Joint Venture. Bid submitted by Joint Ventures including the same entity as partner will be rejected.
(x) The J. V. agreement may specify the share of each individual partner for the purpose of execution of this contract. This is required only for the sole purpose of apportioning the value of the contract to that extend to individual partner for subsequent submission in other bids if he intends to do so for the purpose of the qualification in that tender.

2. The petitioners submitted their bid in Joint V