Procuring entities may seek clarifications for minor procedural infirmities in existing bid documents without violating tender integrity. Judicial review of commercial contract awards is limited to cases of gross illegality, as courts should not substitute their judgment for the expertise of the employer.

JUDGMENT

1. By way of instant writ petition, the petitioner has invoked extraordinary writ jurisdiction of this Court vested under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, to quash Technical Evaluation Result bearing No.CEJ/TS/12932 dated 03.12.2025 issued in reference to e- NIT No.15 of 2025-26 dated 14.10.2025, whereby respondent No.3 has been shown as responsive bidder despite not fulfilling the terms and conditions stipulated in the e-NIT, as he has uploaded the affidavit which was not duly attested by the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class/Executive Magistrate, which violates mandatory Clause 2.2.1 and Note 2.2.1(a) of SBD. A further direction is sought upon respondent No.2 not to open the financial bid in respect of above said e-NIT till outcome of the writ petition or till objections filed by the petitioner to the technical evaluation are considered by respondent No.2.

2. The case of the petitioners, as projected in the writ petition, is that respondent No.2 has issued e-NIT No.15 of 2025-26, dated 14.10.2025, whereby e-tenders were invited from the approved and eligible contractors for the work namely, “Development of Central Courtyard at Mubarak Mandi Heritage Complex, Jammu”. The submission of bids started on 14.10.2025, last date of submission of bids was 03.11.2025. In response to the e-NIT, seven bidders including the petitioner, submitted their bids. The technical evaluation committee, upon evaluation, issued the impugned technical evaluation result by virtue of which, bids of four bidders came to be rejected as non-responsive.

3. It is stated that the Executive Engineer, PWD(R&B) PD-II, one of the member of the technical evaluation committee, has commented that respondent No.3, who figures at serial No.2 in the responsive column, does not fulfill the condition at serial No.9(i) of Clause 2.2.1 of SBD and also Rule 173(xii) of GFR, 2017. According to the petitioner, respondent No.3 also lacks the basic mandatory provisions to qualify for the financial bid, due to his failure to upload the affidavit duly attested by the 1st Class Judicial Magistrate/Executive Magistrate because the affidavit loaded by respondent No.3 bears only seal of the Judicial Magistrate 1st Class without any signatures. The grievance of the petitioner is that despite lacking the eligibility criteria, name of respondent No.3 has been put in the responsive column in the impugned technical evaluation result, which is indicative of the fact that respondent No.2 is giving undue benefit to respondent No.3.

4. Per contra, respondent Nos.1 and 2 resisted the claim of the petitioner by filing their reply. In the reply, it is stated that during technical evaluation of the tenders for the work “Development of Central Courtyard at Mubarak Mandi Heritage Complex, jammu, it was observed that four, out of seven bidders, did not conform to the SBD conditions for the reasons shown against each of them in the Technical Evaluation Result. According to respondent Nos. 1 and 2, respondent No.3 conforms to all the major SBD conditions viz-a-viz financial capability as per the requirement and experience in similar nature of works. He had enclosed all the affidavits, as per the SBD requirements on page 71 to 77 of the bid, however, on page 72, the initials/signatures of the learned judge were missing/not visible on the stamp of the learned Sub-Judge. Regarding the minor conformity noticed above, clarification was sought from the office of the Advocate, who has got attested/identified the private respondent