Bidders must comply with all tender requirements, and failure to submit necessary documents justifies disqualification, regardless of language barriers.

(PER : HONOURABLE MR. JUSTICE UMESH A. TRIVEDI)

1. This petition is filed by the petitioner challenging the decision of the respondent dated 28.03.2024 disqualifying the petitioner at the technical evaluation stage, of a tender for the purchase of 1,00,000/- plastic moulded chairs.

2. Heard Mr. Vishwas Shah, learned advocate for Ms. Bhavna V. Shah, learned advocate for the petitioner. According to his submission, additional terms and conditions of the bid, which is part of the bid document itself on a GeM portal at page 90 as per Schedule I, which required documents mentioned therein are to be uploaded alongwith the bid to be submitted by the time on the last day permitted for submission of bids. The additional terms and conditions to the tender documents, which is annexed at page 93 of the petition, provides that the bidder is supposed to provide online as also offline all the documents required. Though there is further requirement in Clause 17 of that additional terms and conditions, it is not relevant for the purpose of decision of the present petition. However bidder is supposed to file undertaking in the format provided in Clause 17 he agrees to the terms and conditions provided in Clause 1 to 17. Clause 17 further provided that if physical production of documents offline are not arranged serially as asked for and not signed or sealed on each page as also all documents are not paged, it will incur disqualification.

2.1 According to the submission of the learned advocate for the petitioner, two documents mentioned at Schedule I page 90 i.e. receipt of payment made towards professional tax as also affidavit on stamp paper of Rs.300/- declaring that the bidder is not defaulter of any government or non governmental Institution and no police case is filed against the bidder, is to be filed. As per the submission of Mr. Shah, learned advocate for the petitioner, the respondent – authority disqualified him for non submission of receipt of payment made towards professional tax as also required affidavit, as aforesaid. However, according to his submission, he has already uploaded the affidavit, as required, mentioned at Serial No.9 of Schedule I at page 90 of the petition. However, he candidly admitted that receipt of payment towards professional tax is not uploaded but according to his submission, it was provided alongwith the representation made on the next date of rejection of the bid on the ground of holding him disqualified.

2.2 Drawing attention of the Court to page 17 of the bid, details where technical specifications are mentioned as also the last paragraph at page 18 of that document, which is pressed into service, reads as under:

“Further, if any seller has any objection /grievance against these additional clauses or otherwise on any aspect of this bid, they can raise their representation against the same by using the representation window provided in the bid details filled in seller dashboard after logging in as a seller within 4 days of bid publication on GeM. Buyer is duty bound to reply to all such representation and would not be allowed to open bids if he fails to reply to such representations.”

2.3 According to his submission, once representation is made within 4 days of its rejection alongwith required documents, the respondent is supposed to consider his bid and he could not have been disqualified. He has further submitted that the petitioner hails from Mumbai and the bid conditions though in english, the additional terms and conditions at page 93 Schedule I at page 90 are in gujarati, and therefore, he could not properly understand the requirement. Therefore, he has submitted that he may be permitted to participate in the bid further and the order disqualifying him be quashed and set aside.

3. Having heard learned advocate for the petitioner as also considering the submissions made alongwith the documents annexed with the petition, it appears that the petitioner is not filling in this tender for the first time. It