The Hindu Business Line : Tamilnad Minerals tender: HC dismisses exporter's plea

The Madras High Court has declined to interfere with the decision of the state-owned Tamilnad Minerals Ltd in rejecting the bid of a Chennai-based exporter in response to the global tender to operate 33 dimensional granite quarries, as they failed to comply with the tender condition to deposit the requisite earnest money with a nationalised bank.

Dismissing an appeal by the exporter against the order of a single judge, the First Bench consisting of the Chief Justice, Mr A.P. Shah, and Mr Justice K. Chandru, held that it was not within "our domain to interfere with the decision of the respondents" (Tamilnad Minerals and TN Industries Department) rejecting the appellant's bid as they had not deliberately violated the conditions imposed in the notice inviting tender (NIT).

Since 12 other bids were also rejected on similar ground, any direction issued at this juncture to consider the case of the appellant alone would be grossly unjust and it would further hamper the process initiated by the respondents in respect of their global tender.

According to the appellant, Radha Exports (I) Pvt Ltd, they quoted for the tender floated on June 21, 2006 by TML. In all, 68 tenders were received, out of which bids submitted by 13 parties, including the appellant, who had not furnished the requisite demand drafts for the earnest money, from a nationalised bank as per the tender condition, were rejected.

The petitioner went to the High Court challenging the rejection of his bid, and the single judge dismissed the writ petition stating that the petitioner knew the condition and hence could not blame the authorities and seek the aid of the court.

On behalf of the appellant, it was submitted that according to a judgment of the Supreme Court, the court could always interfere if the conditions were not mandatory but were incidental or ancillary to the main condition. The First Bench noted that that was not a case where the court came to the rescue of a person whose bid was rejected. On the contrary, the court refused to go into the question of merits and demerits of the decision made by the authorities. The petition was dismissed on the ground that it was not for the court to determine such an issue.

The First Bench of the High Court said that the apex court had only upheld the right of the authorities to go into the question of the tender conditions. It was only where the authorities waived tender conditions which were not essential, then that action alone was upheld by the court. But that did not mean that the court, exercising powers under Article 226 of the Constitution, could interfere with every tender process thereby nullifying the decision of the authorities, as in the long run it would result in chaos and many projects would be stultified without there being any benefit to the society.

The Bench held there was no case made out by the appellant, and there were no grounds to interfere with the decision of the single judge. The writ appeal stood dismissed.

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