Delhi High Court - Orders
Sisl Infotech Pvt Ltd vs Union Of India And Anr on 24 December, 2021
Author: Vipin Sanghi
Bench: Vipin Sanghi, Jasmeet Singh
$~7
* IN THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI
+ W.P.(C) 15114/2021 & CM APPL. 47627-47628/2021
SISL INFOTECH PVT LTD ..... Petitioner
Through: Mr. Saurabh Kirpal, Sr. Adv. with
Mr. Rohan Jaitley, Mr. Akshay
Sharma, Ms. Tanima Gaur and
Mr.Dev Pratap Shahi Advs.
versus
UNION OF INDIA AND ANR ..... Respondents
Through: Mr. Ajay Digpaul, CGSC and
Mr.Kamal R Digpaul, Adv. for UOI.
Mr. Shlok Chandra, Nodal Counsel
with Mr.Judhajit Roy, Adv. for R-2.
CORAM:
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE VIPIN SANGHI
HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE JASMEET SINGH
ORDER
% 24.12.2021
1. The petitioner has preferred the present writ petition to seek a direction to respondent No.2 to grant an opportunity to the petitioner to submit its bid for "Selection of Managed Cloud Services provider" for the National Health Authority. The petitioner also seeks a direction to respondent No. 2 to extend the deadline for submission of bids in the aforesaid tendering process. The admitted position is that the time scheduled for submission of bids by interested bidders was fixed up to 5:00 pm on 17.12.2021. The case of the petitioner is that the petitioner endeavoured to upload its electronic bid, but the server was slow and the same was not Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AMIT ARORA Signing Date:24.12.2021 20:11:29 getting uploaded. This led to delay in submission of petitioner's bid, and after 05:00 pm the server of the respondents was not accepting the bids.
2. The petitioner has placed on record the correspondence undertaken with the respondent. The said correspondence shows that the first time the petitioner communicated to the respondent about its inability to upload the bid was at 04:58 pm. By this e-mail communication, the petitioner sought extension "by at least one hour". The petitioner sent another communication at 05:49 pm stating that they were trying to submit their bid "during last 20 minutes .......". In fact, this communication would show that the petitioner endeavoured to upload the bid only after 05:00 pm, which was the cut-off time.
3. This Court has already taken a view in Kundan International Pvt. Ltd. v. Govt. of NCT of Delhi in W.P.(C) 6873/2021 decided on 22.07.2021, that if a bidder delays the uploading of its electronic bid to the last minute, it must take the consequences of its failure in uploading the same. We held as follows:
"We do not find any merit in this petition. It was the responsibility of the petitioner to ensure that its bid is uploaded by 5 pm on 20.07.2021. Petitioner should have known that there could be technical glitches, and should have kept accommodation therefor. Moreover, it is only the petitioner's ipse dixit that he made an endeavour to upload its bid at 4:58 pm, when the system hanged. In these proceedings, we are not inclined to get into the disputed questions. We, therefore, leave it open to the petitioner to raise its grievances, if any, in appropriate civil proceedings. Petition is dismissed."Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AMIT ARORA Signing Date:24.12.2021 20:11:29
4. This decision was followed by us in BVG India Ltd. v. North Delhi Municipal Corporation & Anr., decided on 03.09.2022 in W.P.(C) 9148/2021.
5. Mr. Chandra, who appears on advance notice on behalf of the respondents, points out that the respondents have received 9 bids in response to the tender, which were submitted well in time, which include 8 bids submitted between 04:00 pm and 05:00 pm on 17.12.2021. Thus, there was no glitch in the computer systems of the respondent.
6. In view of the aforesaid, we do not find any merit in this petition. Accordingly, the writ petition along with pending applications, if any, stands dismissed.
VIPIN SANGHI, J JASMEET SINGH, J DECEMBER 24, 2021/sr Signature Not Verified Digitally Signed By:AMIT ARORA Signing Date:24.12.2021 20:11:29