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2025 Supreme(Online)(Mad) 62584
The Honourable Mr.Justice N.ANAND VENKATESH Writ Petition No.23088 of 2025 & WMP.Nos.25939 & 25940 of 2025 M/s.Sea Rock Infrastructure, rep.by Managing Partner Mr.S.Gokul ...Petitioner Vs The Chennai Port Authority, Engineering Department, having its office at No.1, Rajaji Salai, Chennai-1 rep.by its Chief Engineer ...Respondent PETITION under
For Petitioner : Mr.Srinath Sridevan, SC for Mr.Vikram P.Jain For Respondent : Mr.AR.L.Sundaresan, ASGOI assisted by Ms.Harshini Jhotiraman & Mr.Avinash Krishnan Ravi
For the Appellants/Petitioners: Mr.Srinath Sridevan, SC for Mr.Vikram P.Jain
For the Respondents: Mr.AR.L.Sundaresan, ASGOI assisted by Ms.Harshini Jhotiraman & Mr.Avinash Krishnan Ravi
Submission of bid capacity certificate without UDIN is a substantive non-compliance and cannot be cured post-disqualification.
Headnote:This Writ Petition was filed under Article 226 of the Constitution seeking to challenge the rejection of the petitioner's technical bid based on the lack of a required UDIN. The court noted that compliance with the relevant statutory requirement, namely, the UDIN, was mandatory as per the ICAI notification, thus justifying the Respondent's rejection of the bid due to incomplete documentation. The central issue was whether the defect was curable; the court concluded that it was not, and upheld the decision to reject. The technical evaluation summary report dated 20.6.2025 was upheld.
| Table of Content |
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| 1. petitioner submitted the technical bid in accordance with the tender requirements. (Para 4) |
| 2. court's interpretation of mandatory udin requirements. (Para 6 , 14 , 15 , 17) |
| 3. arguments presented by both sides regarding compliance with the tender requirements. (Para 10 , 11 , 12) |
| 4. court's conclusion supporting rejection of the petitioner's technical bid. (Para 26) |
ORDER
The petitioner has challenged the decision of the respondent vide technical evaluation summary report dated 20.6.2025 rejecting the petitioner's technical bid in response to the tender dated 18.3.2025 and for a consequential direction to the respondent to accept the petitioner's technical bid and evaluate the petitioner's financial bid with other bidders.
2. Heard both.
3. The case of the petitioner is as follows :
(i) The petitioner is engaged in carrying out civil construction works including construction of marine infrastructure, etc. On 18.3.2025, the respondent issued a notice inviting tender for repair and strengthening of the existing revetment behind coastal berth at Chennai Port. The estimated cost of the project was Rs.4,823.98 lakhs. The petitioner submitted their bid along with earnest money deposit and the documents required to be submitted as per the tender conditions.
(ii) According to the petitioner, the petitioner's bid was complete in all respects and it was in conformity with all the requirements specified by the respondent in the tender document. The technical bids submitted by the bidders were opened on 23.4.2025. Thereafter, the technical evaluation was conducted on 20.6.2025 and the impugned technical evaluation summary report dated 20.6.2025 was uploaded in the website rejecting the petitioner's technical bid mainly on the ground that the Chartered Accountant's certificate regarding the petitioner's available bid capacity did not mention the unique document identification number (for short, the UDIN). Aggrieved by that, the above writ petition has been filed.
4. The respondent filed a counter affidavit wherein they took the following stand :
(i) The bidders should furnish the bid capacity calculation duly self attested and certified by the Chartered Accountant with the UDIN and the membership number as per Form III of Section 9 of the bid document. This requirement was not fulfilled by the petitioner and therefore, the petitioner's bid was found to be incomplete and ultimately, their technical bid was rejected. After the petitioner was disqualified on 20.6.2025, the petitioner submitted the bid capacity calculation certified by the Chartered Accountant with the UDIN.
(ii) Furnishing of the UDIN has been made mandatory through the Gazette Notification dated 02.8.2019 for all types of certification and attestation functions undertaken/signed by a practising Chartered Accountant. Since the petitioner's bid did not satisfy this mandatory requirement, it was rejected. Only after disqualification, the petitioner attempted to fill up the lacuna by generating the UDIN certification on 20.6.2025 at about 22.27 hours. Hence, the respondent justified the rejection of the technical bid of the petitioner and sought for dismissal of this writ petition.
5. Clause 4 of the Tender Conditions deals with the eligibility criteria. Clause 4.2 provides for the minimum qualification criteria. Clause 3(iii) specifically deals with the bid capacity. The bidder is expected to furnish the bid capacity calculation duly self attested and certified by the Chartered Accountant with the UDIN and the membership number as per Form III of Section 9 of the bid document.
6. Before going into the importance of the UDIN, it will be relevant to take note of the Notification issued by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) dated 02.8.2019, which was brought in to curb the malpractice of false certification/attestation by unauthorized persons and to eradicate the practice of bogus certificates. Hence, the ICAI decided to implement the concept of generatin
