The Hindu Business Line : HC stays work on Vizhinjam project

The Kerala High Court on Thursday quashed the decision of the State Government and the Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd to reject the technical and financial bids submitted by the Mumbai-based Zoom Developers for construction of the Vizhinjam Deepwater Seaport and International Transshipment Container Terminal.

The Bench comprising the Chief Justice, Mr H.L. Dattu, and Mr Justice A.K. Basheer ordered that Zoom Developers’ bids be considered within 15 days.

Till a decision is taken on the issue, the steps taken for awarding the contract to the Lanco Kondapalli Power Pvt Ltd, Hyderabad, should be kept in abeyance, the court ordered.

The Bench also ordered that if the bids submitted by Zoom Developers were found to be better, the decisions to award the contract to the Hyderabad-based company should be cancelled.

The directives were issued while allowing an appeal filed by Zoom Developers against a single judge’s verdict dismissing its writ petition challenging the government action.

The court said that it was not justified to exclude the appellant from the zone of consideration during the bid evaluation stage on the reason that a new partner was added at later stage. The procedure adopted by the committee was bad in law.

The court also opined that the opinion of the Law Secretary on the issue was obtained not through proper channel.

The Law Secretary who participated in the evaluation committee meeting gave his opinion off the record. The court also observed that the evaluation committee did not independently consider the bids of Zoom Developers.

According to the company, five consortia had submitted tenders for the project. Of them, three were pre-qualified. They were Lanco Consortium, Videocon Consortium and Nagarjuna Consortium. Zoom Consortium and Apollo Consortium were disqualified.

Zoom was disqualified on the main ground that they had changed the consortium partners after the final date of submission of the agreement and that they had not stated that they would be jointly and severely liable for execution of the project.

More Stories on : Shipping/Ports | Courts/Legal Issues | Kerala

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