JUDGMENT :

1. Leave granted.

2. These four appeals have been filed challenging the judgment dated 18.08.2021 of the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court whereby the Writ Petition of the respondent No. 1- GMR Airports Limited (for short 'GAL') and GMR Nagpur International Airport Limited (for short 'GNIAL') filed against MIHAN India Limited (for short 'MIL') and Government of Maharashtra (for short 'GoM') has been allowed. The High Court set-aside the impugned communication of annulling the bidding process and directed to take further necessary steps as per prayer clause (b) of the Writ Petition.

3. The appeal arising out of Special Leave Petition (C) No. 15556 of 2021 has been filed by MIL (which was the respondent no. 1 before the High Court) and appeal arising out of Special Leave Petition (C) No. 16737 of 2021 has been filed by the GoM (which was the respondent No.2 before the High Court). The other two appeals arising out of Diary No. 23479 of 2021 and Diary No. 23477 of 2021 have been filed by the Airports Authority of India (for short 'AAI') and Union of India (for short 'UoI') respectively, which were not the party before the High Court and hence applications for permission to file the special leave petitions have been filed, which are granted in both the special leave petitions.

4. Since, the order under challenge in all the appeals is the same and the facts in the said appeals are common, however Special Leave Petition No. 15556 of 2021 titled MIHAN India Limited versus GMR Airports Limited & Ors. is being treated as the lead petition.

5. Briefly, the facts relevant for the purpose of the appeals are that the Nagpur International Airport (for short 'Nagpur Airport') was being run by the AAI. On the initiative of GoM to develop a multi-modal international passenger and cargo hub airport at Nagpur, for brevity sake referred as 'MIHAN', in coordination with Government of India (for short 'GoI'),Ministry of Civil Aviation (for short 'MoCA'), AAI and Indian Air Force through Ministry of Defence has prepared the report for MIHAN project. On 18.12.2006, GoI through MoCA and AAI on one side; and GoM and Maharashtra Airport Development Company (for short 'MADC') on the other side, entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (for short 'MoU') for the purpose of establishing a Joint Venture Company (for short 'JVC') and transferring the Airport to the said JVC to develop it into MIHAN. As per the said MoU, MADC shall have 51% of the equity and AAI 49% equity of the JVC. Pursuant to the MoU, the AAI and MADC entered into a Joint Venture Agreement (for short 'JVA') on 22.02.2009 for the purpose of incorporating a JVC, which is known as MIL. As per the terms and conditions of the MoU dated 18.12.2006 and the JVA dated 22.02.2009, MIL took over the Airport from AAI on 07.08.2009.

6. As per the instructions of GoI, it was thereafter, decided that for the upgradation, modernization, operation and maintenance of the Airport (subsequently named as Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport, Nagpur) global tenders were to be called by MIL by inviting bids from private parties as per the Request for Qualification (for short 'RFQ') for selection of private developers, through public private participation (for short 'PPP') on Design, Build, Finance, Operate and Transfer (DBFOT) basis. On 11.12.2017, GoM constituted a High-Powered Project Monitoring and Implementation Committee (for short 'PMIC') consisting of eleven Members, being officers of GoM, GoI, MADC and AAI and the C