New Delhi: There was no fair and transparent procedure in the award of contracts to two companies for privatisation and modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, Reliance Airports Developers argued in the Supreme Court on Wednesday.

A Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S.H. Kapadia is examining the modernisation issue and the procedure adopted in lowering the standard as well as giving choice in the opening of the financial bid.

Appearing for Reliance, senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi found fault with the Delhi High Court judgment rejecting its petition seeking cancellation of contracts awarded to GMR Infrastructure Limited and GVK Industries Limited.

Mr. Rohatgi submitted that the issues requiring consideration were: whether it was permissible for the Government of India to unilaterally change the tender conditions after evaluation had been done, especially when the alteration would operate to the prejudice of one particular bidder, viz the petitioner. He said the Government illegally and arbitrarily reduced the benchmark of technical expertise from 80 to 50 per cent to favour the rivals.

At least one contract

He argued that the two firms, which were awarded the contracts, knew everything about the bids made by others and they were deliberately given time to make a bid higher than that of the petitioner. As the highest financial bidder for the Delhi airport and as the highest technical bidder for the Mumbai airport, Reliance should have been awarded at least one of the projects.

Mr. Rohatgi said that since GMR and Reliance were the only qualified bidders for Delhi, the slot for the Mumbai airport was open and fresh bidding could have been initiated.

Assailing the High Court judgment, he said it overlooked the fact that the petitioner was the highest bidder for the Delhi airport and it was technically best suited for the Mumbai airport.

Further, the respondents had arbitrarily applied two different standards/yardsticks for the two airports sought to be privatised under the same tender process.

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