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K.C.Gopakumar

Kochi, June 3 The Kerala High Court on Tuesday restrained the State Government and Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd from commencing the construction works of the proposed International Deepwater Seaport and Container Transhipment Terminal at Vizhinjam for two weeks in case it got clearance from the Central Government.

However, Mr Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan made it clear that the Central Government could go ahead with the consideration of the grant of clearance for the new port.

The Judge also directed the State Government to place on record the report of the High Level Committee which considered the tenders submitted by various consortiums for the construction of the new port.

The court asked IL& FS Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd which assisted the Government to evaluate the tenders to place on record its evaluation report regarding the tender submitted by the petitioner, Zoom Developers Private Ltd, Mumbai.

The petitioner sought a direction to the State Government and Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd, to open the technical and financial bids submitted by it. It said the respondents had treated the proposal submitted by the petitioner’s consortium as non-responsive and did not open it.

The petitioner said it had spent about Rs 10 crore for conducting a detailed study/evaluation of the project and submitting the qualification, technical and financial bids. The State Government could have opened its bid and found out whether it was more competitive than the bid submitted by the LANCO Consortium.

According to the petitioner, after an evaluation of the bid submitted by the petitioner, IL&FS had sought certain clarifications and documents.

The petitioner had later complied with all these requirements. However, the petitioner came to know from the newspaper reports that Hyderabad-based Infrastructure and Power Development Company, Lanco Infratech Ltd had secured mandate from the Kerala Government to develop the project.

The petitioner had been informed that its bid was not considered for the reason that the petitioner changed the consortium partners.

Immediately, the petitioner had clarified that at no point of time it had not made any alterations in the consortium partners. The documents would reveal that the members were Zoom Developers Ltd, Portia Management Services and Peter Fraenkel and Partners.

The petitioner bona fide believed that in view of the clarifications and supporting documents submitted by the petitioner and in view of no further clarification being sought by IL&FS, their Statement of Qualification would be found to be substantially responsive to the requirements set forth in the proposal and that the bid submitted by the petitioner would be in order and hence their technical and financial proposals would also be opened.

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