Case: Glodyne Technoserve Limited Vs. State Of M.P

General submitted that the order of the High Court impugned in the present appeal did not suffer from any infirmity which required any interference by this Court. 29. The submissions made by the learned Attorney General were reiterated by Mr. Paras Kuhad, appearing for the Respondent No.4, HCL Construction Ltd, which was impleaded as a Respondent by this Court on 3rd August, 2010. Mr. Kuhad submitted that having regard to the fact that a Corrigendum had been issued by which the provisions of paragraphs 3.1 and 7.1 had been completely substituted, it was no longer open to the Appellant to place reliance on the same since the said provisions no longer existed. Mr. Kuhad contended that the submissions made on behalf of the Appellant Company with regard to the conditions in the Bidders Response Form and the Bidders Check List, as it stood prior to the Corrigendum having been issued, was devoid of substance and the same had been made only to be rejected. 30. Mr. Kuhad pointed out that once the work had been entrusted to the Respondent No.4, it had taken various steps in establishing the District Mechanism for Public Distribution System in Madhya Pradesh. It was urged that in that regard steps had been taken for Data Digitization Application Development, Preparation of Pre-Enrolment Data, Training and Certification of Operators, Establishment of Enrolment Camps, Biometric Enrolment of Beneficiaries, Data Transfer to UID, Generation of Aadhaar/UID Number and Mapping of EID number to UID number. Mr. Kuhad urged that the steps which were yet to be completed related to the loading of the data to the server and for preparation of the Ration Cards and for issuance of the same and also Food Coupons printing and distribution and retrieval thereof. It was submitted that at this advanced stage, it would be highly inequitable if the public distribution supply project in Madhya Pradesh was interfered with. 31. Replying to the submissions made on behalf of the Respondents, Mr. Shyam Divan, learned Senior Advocate, urged that the Corrigendum which was issued by the Respondents was not a replacement, as had been contended both by the learned Attorney General as well as Mr. Kuhad, but an addition to what was already in existence. Mr. Shyam Divan reiterated the submissions made by Mr. Salve that the clause relating to filing of certificate of registration even at the stage of signing of the agreement was valid and capable of being acted upon. Mr. Divan contended that the only change which was effected by the Corrigendum in regard to the Bidders response clearly indicated that the Corrigendum related only to the introduction of Lead Partners in case of Consortium and that in case of a Consortium, the partner developing the software application should have CMM Level 3 Certification. It was submitted that in any event, in the absence of clarity, the benefit should go to the Appellant and its bid ought not to have been rejected at the Technical bid stage. 32. Having considered the submissions made on behalf of the respective parties, we are inclined to accept the submissions made by the Attorney General that the introduction of the Corrigendum completely changed the provision in the Bidders Response Form relating to submission of the Quality Certificate in the form of an active ISO 9001:2000 certification. In any event, the appellants contention based on clause 9 of Section 7.1.1 of the RFP as it stood prior to corrigendum is misconceived. The said clause 9 specifically provided: ".....A copy of the Quality certificate or documentation of the Quality policy needs to be provided along with the bid document. In case the certificate is due for renewal, the bidder should ensure that the renewed certificate is made available at the time of signing of contract. In case the same is not provided, the Department may consider negotiating the award of contract with the L2 bidder." The above provision obliges a tenderer to produce along with the bid document a copy of the Quality certificate which is valid and active on the date of submission of the bid and it does not enable a bidder to withhold the copy of such Quality Certificate. Where the Quality certificate will be expiring shortly and is due for renewal, the bidder is also obliged to produce the renewed certificate at the time of signing of the contract. The appellant claimed to have a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certificate at the time of submission of the bid, but did not produce a copy of the said certificate along with the bid document. 33. The submissions made on behalf of the Appellant proceeds on the basis that it was entitled, almost as a matter of right, not to submit the documents required to be submitted along with the bid documents on the supposition that, even if such documents were valid and active, they could be submitted at the time of signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. The Appellant had a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certification which it did not submit along with the Bid documents, may be due to inadvertence, but whether such explanation was to be accepted or not lay within the discretionary powers of the authority inviting the bids. The decision taken to reject the Technical Bid of the Appellant cannot be said to be perverse or arbitrary. We need not refer to the decisions cited by the learned Attorney General or the Appellant in this regard, as the principles enunciated therein are well-established.34. Even the question as to whether Shri Naveen Prakash of the consultant agency had obtained information that the Appellant had a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certification and had passed on such information to Shri Kesari, does not make any difference, since the same was never asked for or placed before the Tender Advisory Committee constituted for the purpose of scrutinizing the Bids despite the presence of Shri Naveen Prakash at the meeting of the Advisory Committee at 2.15 p.m. on the same day. 35.

Decision (1 = appeal accepted, 0 = rejected): 0

Explanation:
0[ds]32. Having considered the submissions made on behalf of the respective parties, we are inclined to accept the submissions made by the Attorney General that the introduction of the Corrigendum completely changed the provision in the Bidders Response Form relating to submission of the Quality Certificate in the form of an active ISO 9001:2000 certification. In any event, the appellants contention based on clause 9 of Section 7.1.1 of the RFP as it stood prior to corrigendum is misconceived.The submissions made on behalf of the Appellant proceeds on the basis that it was entitled, almost as a matter of right, not to submit the documents required to be submitted along with the bid documents on the supposition that, even if such documents were valid and active, they could be submitted at the time of signing of the Memorandum of Understanding. The Appellant had a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certification which it did not submit along with the Bid documents, may be due to inadvertence, but whether such explanation was to be accepted or not lay within the discretionary powers of the authority inviting the bids. The decision taken to reject the Technical Bid of the Appellant cannot be said to be perverse or arbitrary. We need not refer to the decisions cited by the learned Attorney General or the Appellant in this regard, as the principles enunciated therein are well-established.34. Even the question as to whether Shri Naveen Prakash of the consultant agency had obtained information that the Appellant had a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certification and had passed on such information to Shri Kesari, does not make any difference, since the same was never asked for or placed before the Tender Advisory Committee constituted for the purpose of scrutinizing the Bids despite the presence of Shri Naveen Prakash at the meeting of the Advisory Committee at 2.15 p.m. on the same day.