Allahabad High Court
M/S Khusbu Oil Carriers And Another vs Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd And 4 ... on 6 May, 2024
Author: Saumitra Dayal Singh
Bench: Saumitra Dayal Singh
HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT ALLAHABAD ?Neutral Citation No. - 2024:AHC:80937-DB Court No. - 39 Case :- WRIT - C No. - 14813 of 2024 Petitioner :- M/S Khusbu Oil Carriers And Another Respondent :- Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd And 4 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Abhishek Tandon,Ashima Goel,Mahendra Singh,Manu Srivastava Counsel for Respondent :- Anand Tiwari Hon'ble Saumitra Dayal Singh,J.
Hon'ble Donadi Ramesh,J.
1. Heard Shri Abhishek Tandon, learned counsel for the petitioners and Shri Anand Tiwari, learned counsel for the Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd.
2. Challenge has been made to Clause 17 of the Tender for Road Transportation of Bulk POL products. It reads as below:
"Multiple Bids: A bidder shall not have conflict of interest with other bidders. The bidder found to have a conflict of interest shall be disqualified. A bidder may be considered to have a conflict of interest with one or more parties in this bidding process, if a bidder submits more than one bid either individually or / and through proprietorship, affiliates, partnership firms, association of persons, Company etc, where bidder (s) is / are interested.
As per the format given in the tender, a declaration has to be submitted by the bidder declaring that no multiple bids have been submitted in the tender. Evaluation of bid shall be carried out on the basis of this declaration."
3. Insofar as Clause seeks to disqualify multiple bids by single bidder and to that end treats bids made by individual or / and through a partnership firm or an affiliate or a proprietorship or an Association-of-Persons or company etc. to be bid made by the same person on the principle that the bidder may have interest in such other entity that may have also submitted a bid, we find no arbitrariness or other violation of Article 14 of the Constitution of India. The Clause plainly seeks to ensure and encourage competitive bids to arise. By prohibiting multiple bids by one person who may have varying beneficial interest in other business entities, the Clause seeks to prevent or obstruct cartels and monopolies from arising.
4. Submission advanced by learned counsel for the petitioners that there exists arbitrariness in Clause inasmuch as the same set of tankers/vehicles may be offered by different bidders and those bids may remain responsive whereas bids submitted by different entities involving different tankers have been barred occasioned by relationship between the parties who may make such bids, also does not merit acceptance, as existence of the same set of tankers has no bearing on the price at which each / individual bid may arise whereas existence of pre-existing beneficial interest in other bidder firms etc., has a direct bearing on the financial bid that may be offered by the different bidders. It allows for cartels/monopolies to arise.
5. Seen in that light, we find petitioner no.1 is a proprietorship concern of Smt. Gayatri Gupta whereas petitioner no.2 M/s Vaihav Road Lines is a partnership firm concern of Smt. Gayatri Gupta and her son Shri Vabhai Vaish. The petitioners are clearly barred from making two bids. The petitioners may have made only one bid - either through the partnership firm or the proprietorship concern
6. Yet, both petitioners made their bids for the award of same contract. Both have been disqualified upon their bids being described as Multiple-bids. Once multiple bids had been made by the petitioners, contrary to the express Clause of the tender document, no equity may ever arise to them - to claim one or first of the two bids to be considered responsive. Having violated the terms of the tender, both petitioners lost their right to participate in the tender process.
7. The writ petition lacks merit. It is accordingly dismissed. No order as to costs.
Order Date :- 6.5.2024
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(Donadi Ramesh, J.) (S.D. Singh, J.)