RCM INFRASTRUCTURE LTD. Vs. STATE OF ARUNACHAL PRADESH

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Heard Mr. S.S.Dey, learned counsel for the petitioner and Mr. K. Ete, learned Sr. Addl. Advocate General, Arunachal Pradesh.

(2.) The petitioner no.1 is a Limited Company involved in construction of roads, bridges etc. on pan India basis and the petitioner no. 2 is an authorised representative of the company. The Government of Arunachal Pradesh, PWD issued notice to inviting re-tender no. PKB/NEC/PSI/2015-16/1 dated 17.1.2016 for "improvement/upgradation of pakke-seijosa-itakhola road (62 kms) under NEC" at an estimated cost of Rs. 12175.00 lakhs. The petitioner participated in the E-tender process by submitting its bids. Although there were only two bidders including the petitioner fulfilling the eligibility criteria but by subsequent newspaper notification the respondent authorities dated 25.2.2016, date and time for opening the bid was deferred till 3.6.2016 due to some unavoidable circumstances. Thereafter on 3.3.2016 the Respondent No.2 /Chief Engineer issued corrigendum dated 3.3.2016 and clause No. 1, 1a, 1(a)(i), 1(a)(ii), 1(a)iv), 1.21, 7.1,7.3., 7.5, 7.6 ,and 12 were modified in suppression of original uploaded bill documents, whereby respondent authorities have substantially lowered the eligibility criteria that has been mentioned in the original bid documents. Thereafter on 8.3.2016 by order of respondent no.2 date of opening tender was extended to 18.4.2016. On 10.3.2016, the Respondent No.2 issued an office order to the effect that online bids invited for the aforesaid works, as such portal is non-active on account of non-opening of bids as scheduled on 3.3.2016 and as such authorities decided to upload the same again on the website with the same bid with an extension of date of opening as per the order of the Gauhati High Court, Itanagar Bench, with a request to the earlier bidders to upload their bidding once again. In terms of the aforesaid office order the petitioner re-submitted their E-bid on 17.4.2016 along with all necessary documents for the eligibility criteria of the aforesaid tender. The respondents uploaded the bid submission on 17.4.2016. In the interregnum respondents issued the OM dated 6.5.2016 and they received hard copies of some documents from the bidders due to non availability of space provided in the web portal. On 2.7.2016 the petitioner came to know that the respondent authority on 30.6.2016 has uploaded the tender summary report whereby technical bid of the petitioner was rejected for not satisfying the minimum qualifying criteria.

(3.) Petitioner states that they submitted all the necessary documents to meet the minimum criteria to the satisfaction of the respondent authorities in evaluating the technical bid but the respondent authorities have rejected the technical bid in a vague manner without specifying the qualifying criteria on which he had failed to fulfil. By referring to the bid documents (Annexure-1) and the office corrigendum dated 3.3.2016, the minimum eligibility criteria for bidders for qualifying the financial bids it has been submitted that as per the new eligibility criteria also the petitioner fulfils all the eligible criteria.