HON’BLE THE ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE SRI GHULAM MOHAMMED AND HON’BLE SRI JUSTICE NOOTY RAMA MOHANA RAO W.A.No.918 of 2011 ORDER (Per Sri Ghulam Mohammed, ACJ) This writ appeal is preferred by the writ petitioners against the order and judgment dated 12.10.2011 passed by the learned single Judge dismissing W.P.No.25530 of 2011 instituted by them. 2. The State Government has floated tenders for Neelwai Project, Adilabad District, on 07.06.2011. The appellants herein have responded to the said tender notification, as joint venture partners. The second respondent, the Superintending Engineer, Medium Irrigation Projects, rejected the tender filed by the appellants essentially on the ground that the second appellant is not a Special Class Contractor and hence, does not possess the eligibility to compete. Therefore, the entire question centres around the eligibility criteria specified in the tender documents and as to whether the appellants have satisfied such criteria or not. 3. Condition No.27 of the Notice Inviting Tender (for short ‘NIT’) spelt out the eligibility criterion under four separate heads. The first one dealt with the general requirements, the second one dealt with the technical requirements, the third one dealt with the financial requirements, whereas the fourth one dealt with the physical quantity requirements. Under general requirements, it is made clear that bids are limited to reputed firms/joint venture companies/consortiums having experience in execution of works pertaining to spillways, reservoirs, irrigation canals, irrigation structures and bridges. It is also clarified that the bidder/firm/company should be registered with the Government of Andhra Pradesh with valid registration in terms of various Government Orders listed as item Nos.i to xi thereof. It is important to notice that orders of the State Government contained in G.O.Ms.No.94, I & CAD(PW-COD) Department, dated 01.07.2003, is one of the 11 G.Os are mentioned therein. It is also further made clear that as far as joint ventures (hereinafter called as ‘JVs’) are concerned, at least one of the partners must be registered with the Government of Andhra Pradesh and other partners should have applied for registration with the government in terms of the G.Os mentioned above, as on the date of submission of bids. Evidence of their making application with the Government will be sufficient to make them eligible for participation. Insofar as financial requirements are concerned, in case of JV group, each member of the said group should have turn over of not less than Rs.8.75 crores in any one year during the last five financial years. It is also specified that the number of partners in the JV shall not be more than three and that all the JV partners should meet the registration requirements as mentioned in Condition No.27-A(3) of NIT. It is also appropriate to notice that under the general instructions, the bidders have also been specified the eligibility criteria. In paragraph No.3.1.2.2, it is clearly spelt out that the bidder/company should be registered with the Government of Andhra Pradesh with valid registration under Special Class (Civil) in terms of G.O.Ms.No.94 I&CAD Department dated 01.07.2003. As far as JVs are concerned, at least one of the partners must be registered with the Government of Andhra Pradesh and other partners should have applied for registration with the Government of Andhra Pradesh in terms of the G.Os mentioned above as on the date of submission of the bids. Evidence of their making application with the Government is sufficient to make them eligible for participation. It, therefore, becomes necessary to understand as to whether all the partners of the JV are required to be registered as Special Class Contractors or not. 4. Learned senior counsel Sri D. Prakash Reddy, appearing for the appellants, would contend that the general conditions specified in paragraph No.3.1.2.2 have merely set out that at least one of the partners must be registered with the Government of Andhra Pradesh and other partners should have applied for registration and producing evidence of their making an application in that regard would be sufficient to make them eligible for participation. According to the learned senior counsel, Condition No.27-A(3) read with general conditions specified in paragraph No.3.1.2.2 therefore requires only registration of one of the partners of the JV while the others are required to submit application for registration. 5. The leaned Additional Advocate General, who appeared on behalf of respondent Nos.1 and 2 and supported by Sri T. Niranjan Reddy, would contend that it is an essential requirement that only Special Class Contractors, do compete by offering their bids and other classes of contractors are not entitled to compete. According to the learned Additional Advocate General, bids are limited to reputed firms, joint venture companies and consortiums having experience in executing civil engineering works of irrigation. Therefore, all the JV partners should meet the requirements of registration, in accordance with the terms and conditions contained in various Government orders listed in Condition No.27- A(2) of NIT. It is further contended by the learned Additional Advocate General that unless one is registered as a Special Class Contractor, he cannot compete for executing works of the value of more than Rs.10 crores. Hence, it is essentially required that each of the JV partners, should either have been registered or at least one of them should have been registered as a Special Class Contractor while the others may have applied for such a registration. It is, no doubt, true that the appellant Nos.1 and 3, who are also partners of the JV are registered as Special Class Contractors. But however, the second appellant has not even applied for registration as a Special Class Contractor and hence, he has failed to satisfy the requirements specified in Condition No.27-A(3) of the bid document. 6. Learned single Judge has elaborately considered the matter and concluded that the bid of the writ petitioners was rejected on the basis of rational interpretation of Clauses containing the eligibility criteria in tender document and for bona fide reasons and hence, no interference is called for with the decision taken by respondent Nos.1 and 2. The learned single Judge has considered the principle enunciated by the Supreme Court in Siemens Public Communication Network Limited v. Union of India[1], wherein it was clearly held that the process of a decision making should be fair, reasonable and transparent. It is also held that it is not open to rewrite the conditions contained in any bid document or read something else into the bid document by incorporating what does not exist therein. Applying this principle to the present situation, what we have noticed is that the terms specified in Condition No.27-A(3) read with general conditions specified in Paragraph No.3.1.2.2 clearly make out that one of the JV partners should have already been registered as a Special Class Contractor and the others must have applied for registration as Special Contractors. If the argument canvassed before us by the learned senior counsel is to be accepted, a situation might arise whereby a JV will be floated with one of the Special Class Contractors as a partner therein, but he could be holding, let us say, an insignificant quantum of interest of 10% to 20% of the total value while the major chunk of financial interest will be held by the others, who may not be Class-I contractors by then. In a given situation, one of the partners can be a Special Class Contractor and others may not be even Class-I or Class-II or Class-III contractors. If the appellants’ argument is to be accepted, such a joint venture would also become eligible, then the very scheme of postulating a Special Class Contractor alone as eligible to undertake execution of works of the order of more than Rs.10 crores becomes redundant. Therefore, we have no hesitation to reject this contention canvassed on behalf of the appellants. The terms used in the bid document relating to eligibility criterion are not ambiguous. They can easily be understood as such by those who are in the business of execution of civil engineering/irrigation works. Therefore, it is not unreasonable for the respondent to have expected that even those who applied for registration as partners of the JV must also have applied for as Special Class Contractors, but not otherwise. 7. Learned senior counsel Sri D. Prakash Reddy has strenuously contended that the learned single Judge inspite of finding that sub-Clause 3 of Clause-A of Condition No.27 of the bid document is not specific as to the requirement that a person should have applied for registration as a Special Class Contractor, but however, proceeded to construe the said Clause as laying down the condition that a person should have applied for registration as a Special Class Contractor. According to the learned senior counsel, such an approach amounts to adding words ‘Special Class Contractor’ into condition No.27-A(3) read with general conditions specified in paragraph No.3.1.2.2 of the bid document and precisely such an approach is totally unwarranted. 8. Conditions of a tender document are not liable to be interpreted in the same manner as the Clauses contained in statutes or rules made there under are liable to be interpreted. But nonetheless, action of the respondents in rejecting the bid of the appellants must be tested upon the touchstone of fairplay in action and reasonableness. It is hardly in doubt that the work sought to be executed for which the NIT was floated, was a specialized Irrigation engineering work and hence, respondent Nos.1 and 2 have confined and limited the bids to reputed firms, joint ventures, companies and consortiums having experience in execution of such specialized irrigation works. Further, Clause 2 of Condition No.27-A has referred to 11 G.Os of the State Government for the purpose of registration of the contracts, and G.O.Ms.No.94 I&CAD Department dated 01.07.2003 is one such. When we perused the said G.O., it dealt with aspects relating to registeration of Special Class Contractors, Class-I, Class-II and Class-III contractors also. If the argument canvassed by the learned senior counsel is carried to its logical end, it would result in, a situation where if any one of the partners is registered as a contractor, not necessarily as a Special class contractor, with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, it would be enough and similarly the other partners were only required to apply for registration. In a given case, one of the partners could have been already registered as a Class-I or II or III contractor and he need not be a Special Class Contractor. But nonetheless, he answers the requirement of registration with the Government in terms of the G.Os referred to therein. Similarly, the other two partners also need not apply for registration as a Special Class Contractors. In our view, that is not the purpose, in specifying the various G.Os mentioned in Condition No.27-A(2) of NIT. It is conveyed clearly that by virtue of the classification arrived at by the State Government, only Special Class Contractors can undertake execution of works of more than Rs.10.00 crores worth like in the instant case. Therefore, it is only fair to construe the requirements specified in Condition No.27-A(3) read with general conditions specified in paragraph No.3.1.2.2 as requiring at least one of the JV partners should have been registered already as a Special Class Contractor while the remaining two partners ought to have applied for registration as Special Class Contractors only. In our opinion, it is not mere registration or application for registration what is important, but it is essentially registration and application for registration as Special Class Contractor that matters, to become eligible to compete. Otherwise, the clause that requires all the partners to satisfy the conditions becomes redundant. 9. It is not in dispute that depending upon the class of the contractors, their eligibility for bidding and participation in Government contracts is determined. Class-I contractors can only bid if the value of the works are up to Rs.10 crores only, whereas Special Class Contractors are entitled to bid for irrespective of the value of the work. Therefore, there is an essential distinction in the primary eligibility of Special Class Contractors as compared to Class-I contractors. In the instant case, the total value of the work is over Rs.52 crores. Therefore, when a Special Class Contractor could alone have competed for a work, by forming a joint venture of which only one partner is registered as a Special Class Contractor, one could not automatically clothe the entire JV with the same status as a Special Class Contractor. It is therefore appropriate that all the partners of the joint venture either should be registered or they ought to have applied for registration as Special Class Contractors. In the instant case, the second appellant has only applied for registration as a Class-I Contractor. He has not applied for registration as a Special Class Contractor. It presupposes that he does not have the necessary qualifications or criteria to satisfy to be registered as a Special Class Contractor. In such circumstances, the view taken by the learned single Judge does not appear to be an unreasonable view. We are of the considered opinion that the view entertained by the learned single Judge is a correct one, in the facts and circumstances of the case. 10. Further, the learned Additional Advocate General has placed reliance upon the judgment rendered by the Supreme Court in GLODYNE TECHNOSERVE LIMITED v. STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH[2], It was clearly held that conditions specified in the bid documents have got to be faithfully complied with by the bidders. Therefore, we are clearly of the opinion that the appellants have been found, rightly by the learned single Judge, as not complying with the eligibility criterion and therefore, rejection of their bid document is neither perverse nor arbitrary on the part of the respondents. We do not find any merit in this writ appeal and it is accordingly dismissed at the admission stage. No order as to costs. ___________________________ GHULAM MOHAMMED, ACJ ___________________________ NOOTY RAMA MOHANA RAO, J Date: 14.11.2011 Sj/knk [1] (2008) 16 SCC 215 [2] (2011) 5 SCC 103