The Patna High Court has held that where a bidder is disqualified for non-compliance with a mandatory tender condition requiring submission of supporting work orders along with experience certificates, and the disqualification is based on due consideration of the materials on record, the writ court will not interfere merely by reassessing the tender authority’s technical evaluation.
Further, the Court clarified that once the bid validity period has expired, the bid loses legal sanctity and no effective or enforceable relief survives; in such a situation, a challenge to technical disqualification becomes incapable of practical adjudication and any determination on merits would be academic. The Court therefore combined two principles: deference to the tendering authority in interpretation and application of mandatory tender requirements, and refusal of writ relief where the tender process has ceased to have operative life due to expiry of bid validity.
The Division Bench comprising Justice Sudhir Singh and Justice Shailendra Singh identified the limited issue as whether interference was warranted in writ jurisdiction with the order of disqualification. On examining the record, the Bench held that the impugned order was passed for non-compliance with the mandatory conditions of the NIT. It specifically noted that the eligibility/technical qualification clause required submission of copies of relevant contracts/work orders together with supporting experience certificates for each financial year, and that although the petitioner had uploaded certain documents such as agreements and experience certificates, the corresponding work orders, being an essential component of the eligibility condition, were not furnished within the stipulated time.
The Bench observed that the petitioner’s objections/representations had in fact been considered. A report was called for from the concerned department, and that report specifically recorded that the petitioner had failed to upload the requisite work orders corresponding to the experience certificates for the relevant financial years. On that basis, the bid was treated as non-responsive to the mandatory requirements of the NIT. The Bench therefore held that the decision to disqualify the petitioner had been taken upon due consideration of the materials on record and could not be said to suffer from non-application of mind.
The Bench also treated the expiry of the bid validity period as a decisive circumstance. It recorded that under the NIT the bid validity period was 150 days from the bid end date, and that this period had expired in July 2025. The Bench observed that upon expiry of the bid validity period, the bid loses its legal sanctity and no vested or enforceable right survives in favour of the bidder. It therefore held that even if the petitioner’s challenge to the technical disqualification were considered, no effective or workable relief could now be granted because reconsideration or participation in the tender process would be impracticable and legally untenable at that stage.
The Bench reiterated the settled position that the author of the tender is the best judge of its requirements and interpretation, and emphasized that constitutional courts must defer to the tendering authority’s understanding of tender terms unless there is mala fide, perversity, arbitrariness, or a procedure meant to favour someone, and that technical evaluation or comparison by the Court is impermissible.
Applying these principles, the Bench concluded that the petitioner’s disqualification was founded on non-compliance with a mandatory condition of the NIT, that the petitioner’s representation had been duly considered, and that with the expiry of the bid validity period no effective or enforceable relief could be granted. Any adjudication on merits would therefore be purely academic.
Briefly, a petition was filed challenging the order by which the petitioner was disqualified at the technical bid stage in respect of NIT No. CNTxE/MMC/NIT/OFC Patchwork/Patna/2024-25/7, concerning OFC laying and associated works for Patna Division. The petitioner sought quashing of the disqualification, a direction to treat it as technically eligible, an inquiry into the fairness of the tender process, and restraint against further tender steps.
The petitioner’s case was that it had submitted all required documents, including experience certificates and relevant contracts/orders, and that its disqualification on the ground that copies of relevant contracts/orders for each financial year had not been submitted was arbitrary and reflected non-application of mind.
The respondents contended that the petitioner had failed to comply with a mandatory requirement of the NIT, namely uploading supporting work orders along with experience certificates, and that upon consideration of the petitioner’s representation it was found that the requisite work orders had not been uploaded within time. The respondents also submitted that the petition had become infructuous because the bid validity period of 150 days had expired in July 2025.
Appearances:
Madhav Raj, Advocate, for Petitioner
Arvind Kumar, CGC, for UOI
Sujeet Kumar Sinha, Advocate, for Respondent no.1
Harendra Prasad Singh, Advocate, for Respondent no. 2 & 3
Additional Solicitor General, for Respondents
