Contracting parties must adhere strictly to stated eligibility criteria in tender documentation to participate.

1. Petitioner is a business concern engaged in transportation of food grains, fertilizers and like stocks from Jammu to different destinations in the State. It claims to have been previously engaged an Road Transport Contractor by Food Corporation of India respondent - Corporation to carry food grains to Srinagar, Kupwara, Leh and Lethpora and to have 'satisfactorily executed and completed' the contract allotted to it.

2. The respondent - Corporation on 9-11-2012 issued a Tender Notice inviting offers from business concerns, satisfying eligibility criteria laid down in notice, for appointment of Road Transport Contractors to transport stocks by road, for the destinations shown in the Tender Notice. The Tender Notice indicated the value of contract, period of contract, earnest money to be deposited and security to be furnished by an aspirant for the contract. The details of Road Transport Contractor proposed to be allotted may be tabulated as under : -
(Editors Note : Tabular matter omitted.)

3. The Tender was to be submitted into two parts, 'technical bid' and 'price bid' . The technical bid was to indicate the experience of the tenderer in transportation of food grains, fertilizers etc. with supporting material. The price bid was to indicate the price in consideration whereof tenderer would execute the contract. It is only after technical bid was opened and tenderer found satisfying the eligibility criteria that the price bid was to be opened and the rates quoted looked into the process taken to its logical end.

4. The Petitioner - Firm respondent to the Tender Notice. However, it was held not eligible for participation in the tendering process. Resultantly, its price bid was not opened and the contract allotted to the private respondents.

5. The decision of the respondent - Corporation not to allow the petitioner - Firm to participate in the tendering process is questioned by it, in the writ petition on hand on the grounds set out in the petition.

6. The respondents oppose the writ petition on the grounds that as the petitioner - Firm failed to append the experience certificate in accordance with the Tender Notice and Model Tender Form For Road Transport Contracts, it was not eligible for participation in the tendering process, much less for award of the contract.

7. I have gone through the pleadings and record available on the file and have heard learned counsel for the parties.

8. The contract tendered, as already stated, was not open to one and all. The contract involved transportation of huge quantity of food grains from Jammu to various destinations in Kashmir and Ladakh regions. The estimated value of the contract was more than 45 crores rupees. The respondent - Corporation was, therefore, justified in its decision to restrict participation in the tendering process to the carriage contractors who had sufficient experience and resource mobilization capacity to execute the contract. It would not run the risk of allotment of such a huge contract to a carriage contractor who had neither experience nor resource or will to execute the contract and expose people living in remote areas of the Kashmir valley and the Ladakh region to immense hardship. Any lapse on part of the carriage contractor would result in food scarcity in aforestated areas. The Tender Notice & MTFRTC, therefore, prescribed eligibility criteria or qualification conditions for participation in the contract. The relevant part of the Tender Notice and MTFRTC needs to be noticed.
Tender Notice:
Eligibility Criteria:
1. Work Experience (Enclose experience certificate for rake handling and transportation duly obta