Summary
The Supreme Court restored the Ujjain municipal waste-collection contract after finding that the High Court had improperly re-evaluated technical and financial bids. Judicial review did not permit appellate reassessment in the absence of arbitrariness, irrationality, bias, mala fides or perversity. An independently bidding company could not rely on an undisclosed third party’s experience, and the expert properly considered suppressed show-cause notices. As separately corrected, the Corporation and successful bidder appeals were allowed and BVG India’s appeal dismissed.
Issues
- Whether the High Court could substitute its own assessment for the expert tender evaluation.
- Whether an independent bidder could use a third party’s experience or withhold required performance information.
- Whether the High Court correctly recalculated financial scores and assessed the successful bidder’s certificate.
Held
- Tender review concerns legality of the decision and decision-making process, rather than an appellate comparison of bids. Courts must respect technical expertise and public interest unless the recognised thresholds of arbitrariness, irrationality, bias, mala fides or perversity are established. None was established here. The lowest price alone did not control an evaluation weighted eighty per cent for technical merit and twenty per cent for financial merit. (¶¶ 6, 7, 10, 11, 17, 19, 20, 21, 26, 29, 33, 34, 35, 47, 48, 49, 50)
- BVG expressly bid independently without a consortium or joint venture and disclosed no relationship with the company named in the experience certificate. That third party certificate could not establish its qualifications. The High Court also wrongly relied on an additional certificate first supplied in the writ proceeding to increase its technical marks. (¶¶ 40, 41, 44, 50(b))
- The tender required disclosure of show-cause notices. BVG left the relevant information blank despite numerous notices. The expert could take those notices into account in evaluating responsiveness and performance, and the High Court erred in increasing the responsiveness score from five to ten. (¶¶ 37, 42, 43, 44)
- The High Court omitted the factor of twenty prescribed for financial scoring and wrongly reduced the successful bidder’s financial marks to 0.85 instead of seventeen. It also confused a later certificate produced in court with the earlier certificate actually submitted and relied on in the bid evaluation. These errors furnished no basis to disturb the award. (¶¶ 38, 39, 45, 46, 47)
- The High Court judgment setting aside the contract was reversed. The original text’s blanket allowance of the appeals must be read with the separately issued correction: Civil Appeals 3330 and 3331 were allowed, while Civil Appeal 3332 of BVG India was dismissed, without costs. (¶¶ 51, 52 (as separately corrected))
Result
High Court judgment set aside and contract award sustained. As separately corrected, Civil Appeals 3330 and 3331 allowed; BVG India’s Civil Appeal 3332 dismissed. No costs.