CAV Order

Per Parth Prateem Sahu, J

1. Rejection of technical bid of petitioner company by respondent No.2 considering that petitioner company does not fulfil the 'work experience' criteria as prescribed under Clauses 6 & 7.2 of the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT), made the petitioner company to approach this Court by way of filing this writ petition, seeking following relief:-

“10.1. That, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to set aside the Technical Bid Evaluation Summary dated 28.3.2022 issued by Respondent No.4 (Annexure- P/4) whereby the petitioner has been declared to be disqualified in Technical Bid for not fulfilling the Work Experience criteria.

10.2. That, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to quash the tender proceedings from the stage of considering the price bids.

10.3. That, this Hon'ble Court be pleased to direct the respondents to reprocess the tender from the stage of price bid considering the petitioner to be a qualified bidder in Technical evaluation having proper work experience.

10.4. Any other relief which this Hon'ble Court may deem fit be granted.”

2. Facts relevant for disposal of this writ petition are that respondent SECL issued NIT bearing No.SECL/ BSP/CMC/ RGH/e-Tender/491 dated 04.12.2021 for “Hiring of suitable capacity surface miner and allied equipment for mechanical excavation/cutting of coal/coal measure strata & deployment of dozer on hiring basis of removal of ridges, left out coal / coal measure strata while working coal seam in the mine” at Baroud OCP, Raigarh Area, District Raigarh. Estimated value of the work is Rs.24,22,45,023.42, inclusive of GST, and period of completion of work is 730 days. Clause-6 of the NIT specified the criteria for eligibility of bidders. The bids were required to be submitted by the bidders in two separate envelopes by 15.12.2021. First envelope is to contain 'technical bid', whereas second envelope is to contain 'price bid'. As per Clause (6) of NIT, technical evaluation is to be made by the system. Pursuant to aforementioned NIT, the petitioner company and four others submitted their bids. Upon evaluation of technical bids submitted by tenderers, the Technical Bid Evaluation Committee sought legal opinion on the documents relating to work experience submitted by petitioner company and after due deliberation, arrived at a conclusion that petitioner did not fulfil eligibility criteria as provided in Clause 6 (A) & 7(2) of the NIT and accordingly declared petitioner company to be ineligible to participate in tender process.

3. Learned counsel for the petitioner would submit that the Technical Bid Evaluation Summary (Annexure P-4) of the petitioner company prepared by respondent No.2, is erroneous. Petitioner submitted all relevant documents in support of work experience of two similar nature of works executed by M/s S.S. Cargo Movers Private Limited, Bhilai, District Durg (CG), a partnership firm, and M/s Godawari Deify SSCM JV, a joint venture firm, in which two Directors of petitioner company namely, Shri Shailesh Kumar Jaiswal and Shri Sukhdev Singh Sidhu were partners and having 60% share and therefore, 60% of work experience in M/s S.S. Cargo Movers and M/s Godawari Deify SSCM JV, was to be taken into consideration, which was in accordance with sub- clause (viii) under heading 'Technical Evaluation by System' under Clause-6 of the NIT. First similar nature of work was issued by the Project Officer, Lingaraj OCP MCL in favour of M/s S.S. Cargo Movers for the period 01.10.2020 to 30.9.2021 for Rs.19,47,52,327.43. Second work of similar nature was issued by the Project Officer, Lingaraj OCP MCL in favour of Godavari Deify SSCM JV for the period 16.10.2020 to 30.9.2021 of the work value of Rs.28,99,93,164.16. As per requirement of NIT, a bidder is required to have work experience of 50% of the tender value. The work experience submitted by petitioner company is more than the criteria fixed. He contended that as per technical bid evaluation summary dated 28.3.2022, technical bid