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Apex court allows REL to bid for Mumbai project

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the consortium of Reliance Energy Ltd (REL) of the Anil Ambani group and Hyundai Engineering and Construction Co. (HDEC) to submit their bid for the Rs. 2,600-crore Mumbai sea link project between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.

A Bench of Justice Arijit Pasayat and Justice S. H. Kapadia passed this order while setting aside a judgment of the Mumbai High Court upholding the exclusion of the consortium from the second stage of bidding on the ground that it had not fulfilled the criteria relating to net worth of Rs. 200 crore.

The Bench held that the REL/HDEC consortium was erroneously excluded from the second stage of the bidding process and extended the period for presenting financial bids by REL/HDEC up to December 15, 2007. The Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation had disqualified them from presenting their bid. The Bombay High Court dismissed a writ petition filed by REL/HDEC.

The present appeal is directed against this judgment dated June 4.

The Bench was of the view that when tenders were invited, the terms and conditions must indicate with legal certainty, norms and benchmarks. If there was vagueness or subjectivity in the said norms it might result in unequal and discriminatory treatment and “may violate the doctrine of level playing field.”

The Bench held that the decision to exclude Reliance Energy/HDEC was arbitrary, whimsical and unreasonable and set aside the impugned judgment.

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