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8. On 14.01.2008, in the presence of the representatives of all the three tenderers, the price bids were handed over to the fifth respondent for the purpose of evaluation to arrive at "Net Present Value" (NPV) and consequently to calculate the total cost for the contract period of 15 years as contemplated in Annexure-I Section V of tender document (Tendering and Evaluation Procedure) in instruction to tenderer.

9. On opening the price bids, according to the petitioner, he emerged as the lowest bidder (L1). It is further claimed by the petitioner that as soon as it was found that the petitioner was the L1, the representatives of the fifth respondent told that the fifth respondent would soon send a letter to the second respondent making a recommendation for award of contract in favour of the petitioner as the petitioner had emerged as the L1 bidder. But, this version of the petitioner is denied by the fifth respondent.

13. From the above pleadings it is seen that the petitioner company, the fourth respondent and the "Prax Air India Private Limited" claimed that each one of them was the lowest bidder. According to the respondents, each tenderer interpreted the tender conditions in their own way and calculated the price bids for the purpose of arriving at NPV in their own method.

14. The following are the evaluation methods adopted by each tenderer, which could be culled out from the representations of the tenderers.

15. Subsequently, by letter dated 23.01.2008, "Inox" claimed that evaluation has to be made only on the basis of average hourly flow rate (i.e.NM3/hr) for all the three gases.

16. It is the case of the petitioner that on 30.01.2008 itself, the fifth respondent made a final recommendation to the second respondent wherein, the fifth respondent is alleged to have stated as follows;

"Based on the above results of NPV it is found that MSPL Gases Limited is the lowest bidder and the prices quoted by them are considered reasonable. Therefore, it is recommended to consider M/s. MSPL Gases Limited for establishment of New Cryogenic Air Separation Plant on BOO basis for supply of stipulated Gases to SSP. It is however suggested that SSP may try and negotiate with MSPL for any possible reduction in supply price of Argon as it is their bought out item."

Stopping for a moment here, it should be mentioned that the second respondent in his counter has made a denial of having received any such letter dated 30.01.2008 from the fifth respondent.

17. Back to narration, on 01.02.2008, the fifth respondent sent a letter to the second respondent stating that the tenderers have not clearly understood the tender requirement/evaluation criteria as stipulated in the tender documents and have interpreted the tender documents differently, to the extent that all of them claiming themselves as the successful bidder according to their own individual interpretation in a way which suits them for evaluation purpose in arriving at NPV. The fifth respondent therefore, suggested to the second respondent to seek "fresh price bid" once again from all the three eligible bidders, defining once again the evaluation criteria.