Petitioner challenged rejection of tender bid due to non-compliance with age criteria for experts not explicitly mentioned in corrigendum. Court found lack of clarification request and dismissed petition as work order issued.
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psv
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT BOMBAY CIVIL APPELLATE JURISDICTION
WRIT PETITION NO.7655 OF 2017
Technogem Consultants Pvt. Ltd. ...Petitioner Vs. Union of India & Ors. ...Respondents -----
Mr.Dushyant Purekar for Petitioner. None appears for Respondents.
CORAM : NARESH H. PATIL AND G.S. KULKARNI, JJ.
DATE : 5th JUNE 2018
P.C.:
The petitioner submitted a tender issued by the respondent No.2Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, on 24th January 2017, inviting bids for the work of “ consultancy services for authority's engineer for supervision of rehabilitation and up-gradation to 2 lane with paved shoulder / 4 lane standards of National Highway section Aurangabad-Sillod section of NH753-F Design Chainage Km 0.00 to 60.630 (L=60.630 Km) in the State of Maharashtra under EPC Mode” . The consultancy services required appointment of Engineer for supervision of rehabilitation and up-gradation and Engineers for various categories including highway design specialist and bridge design specialist. The tender documents are annexed by the petitioner at
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Exhibit A-1 Collectively. Clause 11.2 refers to broad job-description and minimum qualification for Key Personnel mentioned in the enclosure. The relevant part of Clause 11.2 provides that the “age of the Key Personnel should not be more than 65 years on the date of submission of proposal”. Under the caption “Qualification of Key Personnel”, one of the essential qualifications reads as “not more than 65 years of age” as an essential qualification for different technical personnel. For Resident Engineer + Road safety Expert, also one of the essential qualifications referred is “not more than 65 years of age”. For Bridge/Structural Engineer, one of the essential qualifications as to the age is, “not more than 65 years of age”.
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Private Limited in association with Ceoma Consulting. It is an admitted position that the work order was issued on 27th June 2017, practically a year back.
the age limit of these experts and therefore, the petitioner while submitting the tender documents included appointing experts whose age was more than 65 years. The tender document of the petitioner was submitted on 29th April 2017. A representation was made by the petitioner in respect of the said age only after the submission of the bid which is annexed at page 151. The corrigendum reiterates the age criteria and the requirements which are exhibited in the tender document as special/essential condition. General conditions are remaining the same. The learned Counsel appearing for the petitioner therefore submits that in case a clear indication was to be given in the corrigendum as per the tender document, in respect of age limit of these two experts, the petitioner would have submitted the tender by
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mentioning the age of these experts in accordance with the terms and conditions of the tender document. The petitioner was misled by ambiguity of the tender document. The Committee was wrong in allotting “0” marks on the age criteria due to which the petitioner could not comply with the successful candidate and had to loose the allotment of tender.
“21. The said bids were evaluated by the evaluation committee when it was observed by evaluation committee that the age of two key personnel i.e. Bridge Design Specialist and Highway Design Specialist was more than 65 years in the technical bid submitted by the petitioner. 22. As set out herein above the maximum age of any of the key personnel should not be more than 65 years as specifically mentioned in clause 11.2 of section 6, terms of reference. Since the age of the above two key personnel in the technical bid submitted by the petitioner was more than 65 years, they were not found fit for being proposed as part of team as per clause 11.2 and pre-bid clarifications issued. Therefore, zero marks were assigned to the said two key personnel in technical evaluation. The CV's of other key personnel were evaluated as per
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information in the bid and marks were assigned accordingly. The result of technical evaluation was uploaded on 16.05.2017. The technical score of petitioner was declared as 83.73 as against self-marking of 94.7. 23. All the bidders including the petitioner were given time upto 29.05.2017 for their comments on the technical score declared by the respondent 2. Accordingly, the petitioner submitted the comments vide their letter 19.05.2017 requesting reconsideration of zero marks being assigned to two key personnel on account of higher age.”
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not more than 65 years of age considering the nature of work and the subject matter of the tender. One of the submissions advanced by the Counsel for the petitioner is that in the corrigendum, there is no mention that Highway Design Specialist and Bridge Design Specialist should not be more than 65 years of age. The petitioner in fact believed that age limit was not the essential condition of these two experts. We find that appropriate clarification at the relevant time was not asked for. It appears that the petitioner nonetheless wanted to take a chance, having full knowledge of the said essential requirement. The bid was accordingly submitted by the petitioner which the Committee did not approve by taking into consideration the terms and conditions, tender document, essential conditions, corrigendum and the relevant rules.
[NARESH H. PATIL, J.]
Technogem Consultants Pvt. Ltd.
Union of India
NARESH H. PATIL
G.S. KULKARNI
As recorded by the court registry
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