VEDANTA LIMITED Vs. STATE OF GOA

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Invoking the jurisdiction of this Court under Article 226 of the Constitution of India, the petitioners pray that the respondent no.1- State of Goa and respondent no.2-Director of Mines and Geology be directed to issue the Preferred Bidder Award and subsequent Letter of Intent (LOI) for the 'Curpem and Sulcorna Mineral Block-XI' to the petitioner no. 1-Vedanta Limited.

(2.) The facts in brief are that, on 13/8/2024, the respondent no.2 issued a Notice Inviting Tender (NIT, for short) for the purpose of granting mining lease in respect of three mineral blocks of iron ore mineral. On 14/11/2024, the e-auction process for the Curpem and Sulcorna Mineral Block-XI (Mineral Block, for short) took place. During the bidding process, respondent no.4-Agravanshi Pvt. Ltd, (Respondent no.4 bidder, for short), who was one of the bidder encountered a server error on respondent no.3-MSTC portal at 23:02 hours. The respondent no. 4 could access the site at 23:08 hours to find that the auction was over. The respondent no.4 made a phone call to the concerned representative Mr. Tanmoy Sarkar at 23:11 hours about the technical glitch. As requested by Mr. Tanmoy Sarkar, the respondent no.4-bidder sent several whats-app messages regarding the technical glitch to all concerned. At 23:47 hours, respondent no.4 addressed email to the respondent nos. 2 and 3 informing them about the server error on the portal due to which they could not participate in the auction process at 23:02 hours. The grievance of the respondent no. 4 was that for out of the 8 minutes time for what they would get to enhance the bid, the system was down for 6 minutes leaving them with just 2 minutes.

(3.) The petitioner on 14/11/2024 at 23.41 hours, addressed email to the respondent no.2-DMG stating that they are H1 bidders at 84.5% premium and enquired about the expected date of receipt of the Preferred Bidder Award. The respondent no.4-bidder addressed email to the respondent nos. 2 and 3 at 23:57 hours stating that there was a technical glitch on account of which they could not place their bid. Again at 00:03 am, on 15/11/2024, respondent no.4-bidder sent email to respondent no.3-MSTC and the respondent no.2-DMG informing them about the server error. The respondent no.3-MSTC on 15/11/2024 at 05:47 pm, addressed email to the respondent no.2 informing them that there was no issue at their end and that bids were at 10:58:30 hrs against which another bid was received within 44 seconds and that after that no bid reached their server for the said event. Parallelly, bids were also received against other auctions during the said period which showed that there was no issue at the end of respondent no.3.