Court Not Required To Find Fault Of Authorities With Magnifying Glass: Allahabad HC Dismisses Plea Challenging Tender Process
The Allahabad High Court has observed that the writ Court is not required to find fault of the authorities with a magnifying glass rather the Court should examine the decision-making process and leave room for interpretation of the contract by the authorities.
The Division Bench of Justice Shekhar B Saraf and Justice Manjive Shukla held, “In light of the above factual matrix and after examining the judgments cited above, it is clear that the writ Court is not required to find fault of the authorities with a magnifying glass rather the Court should examine the decision making process and also leave room for interpretation of the contract by the authorities…In the present case, the petitioner has failed to establish that the action of the authorities was contrary to public interest and within the realm of discrimination and unreasonableness, and accordingly, the writ petition cannot be entertained. As this Court has found that the action of the authorities is not arbitrary, discriminatory, mala fide or actuated with any bias, the Court does not wish to intervene in the matter.”
Senior Advocate Shashi Nandan appeared for the Petitioners whereas Senior Advocate Navin Sinha and Additional Advocate General Manish Goyal appeared for the Respondents.
The writ petitions were filed under Article 226 of the Constitution by Dynamic Infracon Pvt. Ltd. and M/s Bengal Wood & Allied Products seeking quashing of the entire tender process held in pursuance of an e-bid tender issued by Superintending Engineer, PWD, Prayagraj Circle, Prayagraj i.e. Respondent No. 2 (‘PWD’).
The Sal Sleeper Purchase Committee through the PWD issued an e-bid document wherein it invited applications from interested Government institutions/corporations/ firms/contractors/business entities either individually or as joint venture/consortium for the supply of sal wood sleeper and edgings for the construction of Pontoon bridges in the Maha Kumbh Mela, 2025 that was to be held in the city of Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh.
It was the case of the Petitioners that after the bidding process was completed, the Letter of Award was granted to other bidders without allegedly following the mandatory condition of the e-bid document, according to which, the bidder must have at least 1000 cubic meters of Sal wood/Sal sleepers/Sal edgings at the time of bidding and in the case of a consortium, the lead member of the consortium must have 51% of the said quantity.
Before examining the issue at hand, the Court considered the law laid down by the Apex Court on the issue of interference by writ courts in tender matters. The Court relied on the landmark judgments in Directorate of Education v. Educomp Datamatics Ltd. reported in (2004), reiterating the view contemplated in Tata Cellular v. Union of India reported in (1994) which has espoused on the scope of judicial review in terms of tender prescribing eligibility criteria and held that the interference by the writ courts is open only when the action of the State authorities is arbitrary, discriminatory or biased but not merely because the court feels that some other term would have been more preferable.
“…We are of the view that the document has to be read as a whole and the said clauses have to be read together. Upon a conjoint reading of said two clauses, we are of the view that there was discretion with the Sal Purchase Committee to carry out inspection which they chose not to do for any of the applicants. The fact that they did not carry out inspection for any of the applicants removes any claim that may be made by the petitioner with regard to any arbitrary or mala fide action on behalf of the respondents.”, the Court held.
The Court also referred to decisions in Central Coalfields Ltd. v. SLL- SML Joint Venture Consortium(2016), Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. v. Nagpur Metro Rail Corpn. Ltd (2016 SC), Silppi Constructions Contractors v. Union of India (2020 SC), Tata Motors Ltd. v. Brihan Mumbai Electric Supply & Transport Undertaking (BEST) (2023 SC) and Jai Hanuman Construction Jagdish Saran v. State of U.P. (2023 All).
Accordingly, the Court dismissed the writ petitions.
Cause Title: Dynamic Infracon Pvt. Ltd. v. State Of Uttar Pradesh And Ors. and another connected matter. (Neutral Citation: 2024:AHC:145591-DB)
Appearances:
Petitioners: Senior Advocate Shashi Nandan and Advocate Udayan Nandan
Respondents: Senior Advocate Navin Sinha, Additional Advocate General Manish Goyal, Advocates Akanksha Sharma, Nikhil Agarwal, Manmohan Singh and R.P. Singh.