Whether the interference of High Court in the view taken by the Tender Inviting Authority (NVS) is justifiable?

Whether the High Court has been justified in interfering with the view taken by the tender inviting authority, i.e., NVS, in rejection of the technical bid of writ petitioner for want of fulfillment of ‘Past Performance’ criterion about supply of ‘same or similar Category Products’ of 60% of bid quantity in at least one of the last three financial years?

Facts

• A  Notice Inviting Tenders (‘NIT’) issued by the appellant-NVS on 12.02.2021 on the Government online portal i.e., Government e-market Place (‘GeM’) for supply of 68,940 Tablets for school children. The NIT carried with it several of the terms and conditions pertaining to ‘Experience’ and ‘Past Performance’ of the bidders.
• M/s. Resoursys Telecom responded to the said NIT and offered its bid for the product i.e., “Tablet” which is being manufactured by an Indian company namely, Lava International Limited, after having necessary approvals from the manufacturer (OEM). 
• After opening the technical bids on 08.05.2021, the appellant-NVS rejected the bid of the writ petitioner on 25.06.2021, while stating the reason of rejection as ‘technical specification mismatch’. 
• The writ petitioner M/s. Resoursys Telecom, as also the said OEM Lava International Limited submitted further representations while maintaining that they were duly complying with the Past Performance clause of the tender document.
• In the aforesaid supplies, only smart phones were supplied to Punjab Infotech and to the Directorate of Women and Child Development, Kerala; and the product“Smart Phone” does not fall within the description of “same or similar Category Product” vis-à-vis the product required under the NIT in question, i.e., “Tablet”. 

Findings

The decision, as taken by the appellant-NVS and its TEC, cannot be said to be totally baseless or absurd or irrational or illogical. It gets perforce reiterated that even if some of the organisations, in relation to their requirements, procured tablets and smart phones both under the same tender process or even used these expressions “interchangeably” or “interconnected”, that by itself cannot lead to a definite conclusion by the Court that “Smart Phones” and “Tablets” are to be taken as similar category products for the tender process in question. 

The High Court, in the present matter has obviously proceeded with an assumption that the view as being taken by it, in acceptance of the case of the writ petitioner, was required to be substituted in place of the views of the tender inviting authority.

The only requirement of law, for such process of decision making by the tender inviting authority, is that it should not be suffering from illegality, irrationality, mala fide, perversity, or procedural impropriety. No such case being made out, the decision of the tender inviting authority (NVS) in the present case was not required to be interfered with on the reasoning that according to the writ Court, the product “Smart Phone” ought to be taken as being of similar category as the product “Tablet”.

Judgment

Supreme Court of India held that  the petition filed by the writ petitioner was required to be dismissed. The High Court having allowed the writ petition on rather irrelevant considerations, the impugned order is required to be set aside.