Summary
The Supreme Court upheld city-gas authorisations for Puducherry, Kanchipuram and Chennai–Tiruvallur. The governing bidding criteria imposed no ceiling linking projected domestic gas connections to 2011 households. An unpublished internal range was a scrutiny guideline, not an automatic disqualification rule. The Board could hear the highest-scoring bidders to explain their unchanged quotes without hearing rivals. Its reasoned assessment of future household estimates warranted no interference.
Issues
- Whether the 2011 Census figures imposed a binding ceiling on projected connections.
- Whether the internal two-to-one-hundred-percent range required automatic rejection.
- Whether hearing only the highest bidders on reasonableness violated natural justice.
Held
- The Regulations expressly linked census population to specified financial requirements but did not impose that linkage or an upper ceiling on the connection-count bidding criterion. Attaching a census-based map to the bid document could not add an eligibility restriction absent from the statutory criteria. Infrastructure planning could account for future needs. (¶¶ 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41)
- The internal note was prepared after bids closed and was never notified to bidders. Its permissive language and the announced case-specific evaluation power made its range a trigger for scrutiny, rather than an inflexible rejection rule. Automatic exclusion on that unpublished basis would be unfair. (¶¶ 13, 16, 43, 44, 45)
- The later agenda note contained a proposal for deliberation, not a final disqualification or award. Calling the highest bidders to explain reasonableness did not permit bid revision or alter composite scores. Competing bidders had no right to participate in that explanatory process on these facts. (¶¶ 46, 47, 50, 55)
- The Board supplied a possible reasoned basis for accepting the three bids, distinguishing another area with untenable assumptions. Future-household estimates were not required to follow one precise formula; interference would require an arbitrary methodology unconnected to the intended result. Unchallenged decisions in other geographical areas did not determine these appeals. (¶¶ 48, 49, 51, 52, 53, 55)
Result
Appeals dismissed, concurring with APTEL’s Technical Member. Transferred cases and pending applications disposed of. No order as to costs.