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Informist, Friday, Dec. 20, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The Bombay High Court on Friday upheld the Maharashtra government's award of the project to redevelop Mumbai's Dharavi slum to successful bidder Adani Properties Pvt. Ltd. It rejected petitioner SecLink Technologies Corp.'s argument that the tender conditions were tailor-made to suit a particular bidder.

 

"As far as the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner that tender conditions were tailor-made to suit a particular tenderer, we may observe that in response to the fresh tender three bidders had participated out of which two bids were found to be technically qualified," said the bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar. At least two bidders fulfilled the technical conditions and, therefore, it cannot be said that the tender conditions were tailored to suit one bidder, the bench said.

 

If the petitioner firm was aggrieved in any manner by the conditions in the fresh tender, it could have challenged them at an appropriate time, the court said. Having failed to do so before the financial bids were opened with respect to the fresh tender, challenging the conditions at a subsequent stage could not be permitted, the bench said.

 

The court said the petitioner's argument that the conditions in the fresh tender were drawn up only to oust it from participation and to suit a particular tenderer was misconceived. "...we conclude that the grounds urged in support of the petition lack force and, accordingly, the challenge to the impugned action on the part of the respondents – authorities, whereby the earlier tender process was cancelled and a fresh tender process has been resorted to, fails," the court said.

 

The court also upheld the cancellation of the earlier tender process initiated in 2018, and the state government's move to initiate a fresh tender for redevelopment of the Dharavi notified area. 

 

SecLink Technologies, a company incorporated in the Republic of Seychelles, had challenged the validity of a decision by a committee of secretaries of the Maharashtra government to cancel the tender process initiated in 2018 for the project. The tender was to select a lead partner for redevelopment of the notified area.

 

After cancellation of the earlier tender process, the Housing Department of the state government issued a resolution in 2022 whereby approval was accorded to a fresh tender process. At INR 50.69 billion, the Adani Group company emerged as the highest bidder for the 259-hectare Dharavi redevelopment project. Thereafter, the petitioner challenged the decision taken by the Maharashtra Cabinet to select Adani Properties for implementation of the project.

 

The petitioner said the reasons given to cancel the earlier tender process were not sustainable, and the cancellation was done for extraneous reasons and hence "arbitrary and irrational" and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

 

The petitioner said the re-tender process defeated the public interest and the conditions in the new tender were created to favour other bidders to defeat its right and that of other prospective bidders to participate in the process. Similarly, the financial eligibility criteria and technical eligibility criteria were also modified, which resulted in deliberate narrowing of participation, the petitioner said.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Rajeev Pai

 

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