GOVERNMENT OF TAMIL NADU & ORS. …Respondents JUDGMENT SANJAY KISHAN KAUL, J. 1. The enlarged role of the Government in economic activity and its corresponding ability to give economic ‘largesse’ was the bedrock of creating what is commonly called the ‘tender jurisdiction’. The objective was to have greater transparency and the consequent right of an aggrieved party to invoke the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article Signature Not Verified Digitally signed by Charanjeet kaur Date: 2021.09.17 14:54:06 IST 226 of the Constitution of India (hereinafter referred to as the Reason: ‘Constitution’), beyond the issue of strict enforcement of contractual [1] rights under the civil jurisdiction. However, the ground reality today is that almost no tender remains unchallenged. Unsuccessful parties or parties not even participating in the tender seek to invoke the jurisdiction of the High Court under Article 226 of the Constitution. The Public Interest Litigation (‘PIL’) jurisdiction is also invoked towards the same objective, an aspect normally deterred by the Court because this causes proxy litigation in purely contractual matters. 2. The judicial review of such contractual matters has its own limitations. It is in this context of judicial review of administrative actions that this Court has opined that it is intended to prevent arbitrariness, irrationality, unreasonableness, bias and mala fide. The purpose is to check whether the choice of decision is made lawfully and not to check whether the choice of decision is sound. In evaluating tenders and awarding contracts, the parties are to be governed by principles of commercial prudence. To that extent, principles of equity and natural justice have to stay at a distance.1 3. We cannot lose sight of the fact that a tenderer or contractor with a grievance can always seek damages in a civil court and thus, “attempts by unsuccessful tenderers with imaginary grievances, wounded pride and 1 Jagdish Mandal v. State of Orissa, (2007) 14 SCC 517. [2] business rivalry, to make mountains out of molehills of some technical/procedural violation or some prejudice to self, and persuade courts to interfere by exercising power of judicial review, should be resisted.”2 4. In a sense the Wednesbury principle is imported to the concept, i.e., the decision is so arbitrary and irrational that it can never be that any responsible authority acting reasonably and in accordance with law would have reached such a decision. One other aspect which would always be kept in mind is that the public interest is not affected. In the conspectus of the aforesaid principles, it was observed in Michigan Rubber v. State of Karnataka3 as under: “23. From the above decisions, the following principles emerge: (a) the basic requirement of Article 14 is fairness in action by the State, and nonarbitrariness in essence and substance is the heartbeat of fair play. These actions are amenable to the judicial review only to the extent that the State must act validly for a discernible reason and not whimsically for any ulterior purpose. If the State acts within the bounds of reasonableness, it would be legitimate to take into consideration the national priorities; (b) fixation of a value of the tender is entirely within the purview of the executive and courts hardly have any role to play in this process except for striking down such action of the executive as is 2 Id. 3 (2012) 8 SCC 216 [3] proved to be arbitrary or unreasonable. If the Government acts in