Konkan Railway Corporation Limited vs Union Of India And Anr
2025 Latest Caselaw 2633 Gua

Gauhati High Court

Konkan Railway Corporation Limited vs Union Of India And Anr on 11 August, 2025

Author: Devashis Baruah

Bench: Devashis Baruah

                                                                   Page No.# 1/7

GAHC010178002025




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                           THE GAUHATI HIGH COURT
   (HIGH COURT OF ASSAM, NAGALAND, MIZORAM AND ARUNACHAL PRADESH)

                              Case No. : WP(C)/4543/2025

            KONKAN RAILWAY CORPORATION LIMITED
            A COMPANY REGISTERED UNDER THE COMPANIES ACT, 1956 HAVING ITS
            REGISTERED OFFICE AT BELAPUR BHAVAN SECTOR-11, CBD BELAPUR,
            NAVI MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA, INDIA - 400 614

            VERSUS

            UNION OF INDIA AND ANR
            REPRESENTED BY MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS, GOVERNMENT OF INDIA,
            CENTRAL SECRETARIAT, NEW DELHI-110001

            2:NORTHEAST FRONTIER RAILWAY
            THROUGH OFFICE OF CHIEF PERSONNEL OFFICER HAVING ITS ADDRESS
            AT MALIGAON
            ASSAM
             PIN-78101

For the petitioner (s)   : Mr. S. Sarma, Advocate

For the respondent (s) : Mr. K. Gogoi, Dy S.G.I.

                              BEFORE
               HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE DEVASHIS BARUAH
                             ORDER

11.08.2025 Issue notice making it returnable on 21.08.2025 at 2:00 PM.

2. Mr. K. Gogoi, the learned counsel appears on behalf of the Page No.# 2/7

respondent Nos.1 & 2 and accepts notice. Extra copies of the writ petition be served upon him during the course of the day.

3. The petitioner herein had participated in the tender process for construction and electrification of the railway line, RPF for Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) contract agreement for doubling of Track between Lumding (Km 191.130) (Including) to Dhansiri Station (Km 241.00) (Excluding) (total length 49.870 Kms) including Electrification and Signaling works in connection with the Lumding-Tinsukia Junction-Dibrugarh doubling project of North-Eastern Railway along with 19 other bidders.

4. The technical bid of the petitioner was rejected, and the same was duly informed on 04.08.2025. The reason why the petitioner's technical bid was rejected was with the remark, "The bidder is non-responsive vide clause 3.1.6.1(a) of RFP."

5. This Court further takes note of from a perusal of the documents enclosed to the writ petition that pursuant to the decision of the Tendering Authority, the financial bids have also been opened in respect to 10 bidders who were found to be technically responsive. The details of which are available in Annexure-C to the writ petition.

6. Mr. S. Sarma, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of Page No.# 3/7

the petitioner submits that the decision as to whom the contract would be awarded is still not made. But the rate which the petitioner had quoted is around Rs.7 crores less than the lowest bidder in the inter-se rank bidders.

7. Mr. K. Gogoi, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondent Nos.1 & 2 submitted that due reasons have been assigned to the effect that the petitioner's technical bid was not responsive for non-compliance to Clause 3.1.6.1(a) of the RFP. The learned counsel for the respondents placed before this Court an instruction produced by the Chief Engineer, Construction/Nagaland Project, N.F. Railway, Maligaon wherein it was mentioned that in terms with Clause 3.1.6.1(a) of the RFP, the bidder had to submit the bid online as per the format at Appendix-IA including Annexures I, II, III, IV, V, VI and VII and Appendix-IB.

It was further mentioned in the said instructions that the Annexure-VI so submitted by the petitioner did not contain the digital signature of the authorized signatory which was a mandatory document. It was further stated that on perusal of the documents submitted by the petitioner, the Tender Committee Members perused all tender documents which were uploaded. It was found that the petitioner simply downloaded and uploaded the file No."61925955-otherdoc241-285" and there Page No.# 4/7

was no digital signature except the digital signature on the first

(Cover) page of the documents, i.e. on the 1st page of

"Corrigendum No.1" (Page 1 of 570) and 1 st Page of RFP (Page 16 of 570).

It was further mentioned that merely signing on random pages did not amount to having signatures on each pages especially for mandatory documents when instructions were clearly mentioned in RFP. The said instruction is kept on record and marked with the letter "X".

8. Mr. K. Gogoi, the learned counsel appearing on behalf of the respondents further submitted that any decision in the instant writ petition would have an impact upon the other bidders. However, the petitioner, inspite of knowing that the other bidders have been held to be technically responsive and their price bid being opened, none of the other bidders have been arrayed as parties. In that regard, he has referred to the judgment of the Supreme Court in the case of Afcons Infrastructure Limited vs. Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Limited and Another , reported in (2016) 16 SCC 818. Paragraph No.18 of the said judgment of the

Supreme Court being relevant is reproduced herein under:-

"18. Before we conclude, it is necessary to point out that the High Court was of the opinion that the eligible bidders were not entitled to Page No.# 5/7

be either impleaded in the petition filed in the High Court by the ineligible bidder GYT-TPL JV or were not entitled to be heard. With respect, this is not the appropriate view to take in matters such as the present. There are several reasons for this, one of them being that there could be occasions (as in the present appeals) where an eligible bidder could bring to the notice of the owner or employer of the project that the ineligible bidder was ineligible for additional reasons or reasons that were not within the contemplation of the owner or employer of the project. It was brought to our notice by Afcons Infrastructure in these appeals that GYT-TPL JV did not have any experience in the construction of a viaduct by the segmental construction method and that the translations of documents in Mandarin language filed in the High Court were not true English translations. Submissions made by the learned counsel for Afcons Infrastructure in this regard are important and would have had a bearing on the decision in the writ petition filed in the High Court but since Afcons Infrastructure was not a party in the High Court, it could not agitate these issues in the writ petition but did so in the review petition which was not entertained. It is to avoid such a situation that it would be more appropriate for the constitutional courts to insist on all eligible bidders being made parties to the proceedings filed by an unsuccessful or ineligible bidder."

9. The question arises at this stage is as to whether the ongoing tender process should be interfered with by this Court by passing an interim order.

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10. The materials on record and instructions so placed clearly show that admittedly the Annexure-VI document which was required to be uploaded did not contain any digital signature of the authorized signatory of the petitioner. The counsel for the petitioner submitted that the digital signature in Annexure-VI was not mandatory and otherwise also there was substantial compliance to the Bid document in as much as in the letter comprising of the technical Bid which is in Appendix-IA, the petitioner duly submitted that the petitioner agrees to abide by the Annexure-VI along with other documents. The learned counsel for the petitioner therefore submitted that on such trivial issue, the technical Bid of the petitioner ought not to have been cancelled.

11. The settled law stipulates that the best judge to decide whether the requirement of submission of the document in the manner stipulated in the Bid document is mandatory or not should be left to the wisdom of the authors of the Tender documents and the judicial interference is limited unless perversity and malafide can be demonstrated. {See Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. (Supra) (Paragraph 15)}.

12. This court further finds it pertinent to observe that the project in question is a project of national importance. The period for completion of the project is 1083 days and sans a very Page No.# 7/7

strong case made out to stay the tendering process, it would not be in the interest of justice and also the settled law to stall the tender process. Further delay in the finalization of the tender would result in escalation of costs which in effect would cause impact to the Public Exchequer.

13. The materials on record and the case made out by the petitioner is not of such nature which inspires the confidence of this Court for passing interim directions for stalling the finalization of the tender process. Accordingly, this Court is not inclined to pass interim directions at this stage.

14. This Court, however, is of the opinion that the matter requires an early resolution for which this Court directs the Respondent Authorities to bring on record their stand by filing the affidavit by 19.08.2025 by providing advance copy to the counsel for the petitioner.

15. The petitioner would be at liberty to file reply within two days, if so desired.

16. An attempt shall be made to dispose of the writ petition on the next date.

JUDGE

Comparing Assistant