VIRGO SOFTECH LIMITED Vs. STATE OF CHHATTISGARH THROUGH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) TRANSPORT Department, Government of Chhattisgarh/employer, issued Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT)/Request for Proposal (RFP) dated 11th of April, 2011 from qualified bidders for their proposed service delivery project relating to smart card based Driving Licences, Vehicle Registration and other IT related activities. Key objectives of the project, scope of work and qualifying criteria were specified in a classified manner in the tender documents. Clause 10, 11 & 16 of the qualifying criteria read as under:-

(2.) CLAUSE 2 of the NIT deals with general terms & conditions. It deals with submission and withdrawal of bid; amendment of RFP document; evaluation of bid; and evaluation framework. Under evaluation framework, Clause 2.1.5 deals evaluation marking system in the following manner :- Criteria Maximum marks Legacy Data entry of old manual 20 data of Vehicles (minimum 10 lac data entry for each project) in digital system for Transport Department in India z Data entry in 1 State - 10 marks Prior experience in implementation 10 of Smart Card personalization application with NIC based "VAHAN / SARATHI" z Implementation in 1 State - 5 marks z Implementation in more than 1 State 10 marks Prior experience in implementation 20 & management of Centralized Web based applications in Transport Department in India z Implementation in 1 State - 10 marks z Implementation in more than 1 State - 20 marks Prior experience in setting-up & 20 managing data centre in Transport Department in India z 1 State - 10 marks z More than 1 State - 20 marks Turnover in last 3 financial years 10 z 20 to 50 Crore - 5 marks z More than 50 Crore - 10 marks Technical Presentation including 20 demonstration of proposed application (s) 100 Total The bidder would be required to obtain minimum 60 marks as per above matrix & qualify as technically suitable for the said project and be eligible for next round i.e. price proposal under this tender. It was defined under Clause 2.2 that after Technical Proposals are opened and evaluated, a list of short listed Vendors will be prepared. The short-listed Vendors will be required to make a presentation cum real time full-fledged demonstration, with all required applications, to the Department. The components of the presentation shall include at least personalization and printing of a SCOSTA smart card as per the National Standard for Transport Application; description on the smart card project experience of the vendor or its smart card technology partner; and description of the implementation plan. It was further reiterated that the minimum Technical Score required for qualifying for the Financial Proposal is 60 Points. The financial proposals of bidders whose technical score is less than 60 points will not be opened.

(3.) MR. Kishore Bhaduri, learned Additional Advocate General appearing on behalf of the State/respondents 1 to 3, opposed these arguments. He argued that the petitioner was not the Preferred Bidder; qualifying criteria No. 10 & 11 which were declared not mandatory were only with relation to qualify in pre-qualification bid evaluation; allocation of marks against the above criteria, therefore, was not unreasonable; the State has chosen the best bidder strictly adhering to the tender conditions; marking system was never challenged by the petitioner; and the petitioner knowing all well participated in the tender process. After being unsuccessful, he cannot be allowed to challenge the essential conditions of the NIT.