Strict adherence to tender requirements, particularly for essential documents like NOCs, is mandated for eligibility, with judicial restraint applied in reviewing tender decisions.

C.A.V. JUDGMENT

Date : 30.05.2019

The present writ petition has been filed for quashing the email message dated 24.08.2018, whereby the petitioner was intimated about the rejection of his technical bid, which was submitted by the petitioner for award of contract of transportation of petroleum products belonging to the respondent Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (hereinafter referred to as the ‘BPCL’). The petitioner has further prayed for declaring the reasons assigned by the respondent BPCL in the impugned email message for rejecting the petitioner’s technical bid to be highly technical and, therefore, unsustainable in the eyes of law.

The brief facts of the case, as per the petitioner herein, are that the respondent Corporation had published a notice inviting tender seeking applications from the intending applicants for award of contract of transportation of Bulk Product, Ex. Barauni Terminal, of the respondent BPCL through tank lorries. The petitioner had applied by submitting the application along with all the required documents on 16.12.2017, which was submitted online and all the documents were scanned and enclosed with the said application as attachments. The petitioner is stated to have offered a total number of 21 tank lorries in his tender. It is submitted that out of the 21 tank lorries offered by the petitioner, as on the date of submissions of bids, before the respondent BPCL, 17 of such tank lorries were the once which were initially attached with the Indian Oil Corporation Limited but later detached. In this regard, it has been stated that earlier the petitioner had been awarded similar contract by Indian Oil Corporation for transportation of Bulk Petroleum Products from Barauni Terminal where the petitioner had supplied 39 tank lorries and the said contract was initially for a period of two years whereafter the same was extended from time to time and lastly it was extended up to 28.02.2018 vide letter dated 29.01.2018, however, as far as the letter of extensions of the aforesaid contract by the Indian Oil Corporation Limited is concerned, the same pertains to only 13 tank lorries out of the initially offered 39 tank lorries, hence 26 tank lorries had been taken out by the petitioner from the aforesaid contract with the Indian Oil Corporation. In nutshell, the submission of the learned counsel for the petitioner is that out of the 21 tank lorries, offered by the petitioner to the BPCL, 17 tank lorries belong to the aforesaid group of 26 tank lorries which had been withdrawn by the petitioner from the contract with Indian Oil Corporation prior to submission of the present tender with the BPCL and four other tank lorries were fresh vehicles. Nonetheless, the respondent BPCL had rejected the technical bid of the petitioner without assigning any reason by an email message dated 24.08.2018, whereafter the petitioner had requested the respondent BPCL to furnish the reason for rejection of the technical bid of the petitioner whereupon the respondent BPCL had forwarded the scanned email message whereby it was stated that:- As per evaluation committee’s report, TL’s rejected as per attachment 8 and 9 of NIT and total number of qualified TL’s became less than 5 T/Ls (as per NIT clause no. 3 of page-6) hence technically rejected as per point no. Kc page no. 17 i.e. “ number of tank lorry offered is not in line with the tender requirement”.

The learned counsel for the petitioner has submitted that the petitioner has not committed any error nor the petitioner is in default in terms of the requirements of the notice inviting tender inasmuch as the petitioner has offered a total number of 21 tank lorries out of which four tank lorries are fresh and 17 tank lorries, which were earlier attached with Indian Oil Corporation, have been detached with effect from 15.12.2017. It is further submitted that the fault is on the part of the Indian Oil Corporation and its authorities in not deleting the aforesaid 26 tank lorries, which incl