THOUGHTSOL INFOTECH PRIVATE LIMITED Vs. UNION OF INDIA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Award of contract for hiring of cloud services for upgradation of National Data Repository, by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons, in favour of third respondent company, notwithstanding the lowest bid of petitioner, is the subject matter of challenge in this petition. The petitioner submits that preferential treatment meted out to the third respondent on account of its status as registered Micro & Small Enterprise (in short 'MSE'), although substantial part of the contract is to be performed by Non-MSE i.e. Amazon Web Services (in short 'AWS') is in teeth of the applicable MSME policy and its objectives and thus wholly irrational and arbitrary.

(2.) Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (hereinafter referred to as 'DGH') came to be established under the administrative control of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India in 1993. Its object was to promote sound management of oil and natural gas resources having regard to environment, safety, technological and commercial aspects of the petroleum activity. DGH was also entrusted the management of natural exploration and production (E&P) data in the oil and natural gas sector.

(3.) The E&P data is owned by the Government of India and is a national asset. By way of an amendment introduced in Petroleum and Natural Gas (Amendment) Rules, 2006 every E&P operator in India is obliged to provide free of cost all data earlier obtained or to be obtained as a result of petroleum operations in India to the Central Government or its designated agency. The E&P data policy issued by the Ministry in 2017 contemplates creation of a framework for data assimilation, disclosure, sharing, accessibility and dissemination through a National Data Repository (in short 'NDR'). This was in accordance with the policy decision taken by the Government of India on 28/2/2014. NDR came to be formally launched to public on 28/6/2017. It is currently operational at OIDB Building at Noida, Gautam Buddh Nagar, Uttar Pradesh.