IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT

CHANDIGARH

C.W.P. No. 6820 of 2008

Date of Decision: June 13, 2008

Areva T&D India Limited

…Petitioner

Versus

Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd.

…Respondent

CORAM:

HON’BLE MR. JUSTICE M.M. KUMAR

HON’BLE MRS. JUSTICE SABINA

Present:

Mr. Vijay Hansaria, Sr. Advocate, with

Mr. Sanjeev Sharma, Advocate,

for the petitioner.

Mr. A.T.M. Rangaramanujam, Sr. Advocate, with

Mr. Gaurav Mohunta, Advocate,

for the respondent.

M.M. KUMAR, J.

This case is an apt illustration of Shakespearean adage

‘Much ado about nothing’. The non-matching patent printing errors in a

part of tender documents have been blown out of proportion, which has

resulted in filing of this petition under Article 226 of the Constitution

for commanding the respondent-Power Grid Corporation to accept the

price of the 125MVAR, 420Kv 3Ph Bus Reactor (excluding insulating

oil) as has been given in Schedule-1 and to accordingly amend the letter

of award dated 25.3.2008 (P-10) to make it consonance with the offer

made by the petitioner Company in its price proposal (Schedule 1) of

C.W.P. No. 6820 of 2008

the Bid Form. Still further it has been prayed to direct the respondent

not to invoke the bank guarantee amounting to Rs. 96,97,000/- (P-3).

2.

Brief facts of the case are that the petitioner is a Limited

Company incorporated under the provisions of the Companies Act, 1956

(for brevity, ‘the 1956 Act’), having roots which are wide spread in the

Country. The head office of the petitioner is located at Kolkata whereas

its administrative office is situated at Noida (Uttar Pradesh). It is

claimed that the workforce of the petitioner is spread across 8 industrial

sites in Bangalore, Chennai and Pondicherry as well as in Calcutta,

Naini and Delhi besides 22 regional sales offices. There are four

business units of the petitioner in the country. The Baroda Division of

the petitioner is stated to have invested 34 million Euros in the

construction of a facility to manufacture ultra-high voltage power

transformers, which would enable our country to meet domestic demand

of energy and achieve world-class standards through state-of-the-art

technology. It has further been claimed that the petitioner enjoys 70%

market share in the Energy Management System segment for

transmission networks. It has supplied and commissioned India’s first

765KV substation in 2007 for the NTPC Sipat plant. 80% of New

Delhi’s electricity flows through this sub-station. It has 20% market

share in HVDC technology for inter-regional power exchanges and has

the largest number of GIS references in India. It also provides Network

Consultancy contract for Reliance Energy’s Delhi and Mumbai

networks, the first of its kind in India. The petitioner has also carried

out modernization of Bhutan’s electricity network.

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C.W.P. No. 6820 of 2008

3.

The respondent-Power Grid Corporation is a Limited

Company and an enterprise of the Government of India. On 18.6.2007,

the respondent issued an advertisement floating Global Tenders inviting

bids for Shunt Reactors Package (Supply & Erection) for 400KV Purena

& Siliguri Substations associated with eastern region strengthening

Scheme-II and 400KV Sonepat Substation accociated with NRSS-XII

projects (Annexure P-1). On 2.7.2007, bid documents were issued by

the respondents which includes (i) Instruction to Bidders (ITB); (ii)

General Conditions of Contract (GCC); (iii) Special Conditions of

Contract (SCC); (iv) Schedule of Requirements (SOR); (v) Technical

Specifications (TS); (vi) Forms for bid security, contract agreement,

performance security and others (FORMS); (vii) Bid form, price and

other schedules (Bid Proposal Sheets); and (viii) data requirement sheets

[Annexure P-2 (Colly)].

4.

Being qualified, the petitioner also participated in the

tender and submitted its documentation on 24.8.2007. The petitioner

also deposited a bank guarantee