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18. At this stage, we may observe that though the said certificate purports to give breakup of the amounts received in the past five financial years, the tabulation actually discloses the amount received only in the three years, namely, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

19. Mr. Mittal submits that the said Statutory Auditor Certificate is, therefore of no avail to the petitioner, since the statutory auditor, in this certificate, did not certify the execution of work by the petitioner in the last five years relating to construction of Bridge/ ROBs/ Flyovers. Mr. Mittal submits that the submission of a Chinese document purporting to certify the execution of works relating to Major Bridge/ ROBs/ Flyovers, which was neither signed nor dated, was meaningless, since the ownership of the said document was not established. Moreover, in the absence of the date, it was not even clear as to when the said certificate was drawn. The mere affixation of a seal in Chinese language, which the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) of the respondent could not have appreciated, was also meaningless. He submits that the English translation submitted by the petitioner was again merely stamped, and was neither signed nor dated. The mere fact that the documents were apostilled by the Indian Embassy in China, and that they were Notarised by a Notary Public in India, does not resolve the deficiency in the said documents of them not being signed not being dated. Consequently, even the ownership of the translations was not established. Unless signed, the petitioner could not be held bound by the certificate, and could escape from legal consequences if it were to renege from its offer contained in the bid. Thus, the TEC of the respondent rightly did not rely upon the said documents while evaluating the technical bid of the petitioner.

26. Acceptance of submission of Mr. Kaul that mere affixation of the seal on the documents was sufficient for their acceptance, can lead to uncertain situations. A bidder may subsequently - after the bid opening, disown a document forming part of the bid, on the ground that the same had not been signed by him or his authorized representative, when it suits him to renege from the document. The TEC cannot be expected to act on the basis of uncertainty vis-à-vis any bidder, as that may jeopardize the entire bidding process which, in such like cases, is very elaborate, and time and expense consuming. Therefore, the insistence of the respondent on submission of duly signed and dated documents/ certificates cannot be trivialized, merely because it suits the petitioner to own up the said documents at this stage. The petitioner was obliged to submit the duly signed and sealed bid which, obviously, meant that the documents and certificates forming part of the bid documents were also required to be duly signed and sealed. The process of apostilling a document, or its notarization, do not take away the lacuna in the document that is not signed. The Apostille is attached to the original document to verify that it is legitimate and authentic, so it could be accepted in one of the other countries, who are members of the Hague Apostille Convention. Thus, the apostille only certifies that the documents, as produced by the petitioner before the Indian Embassy, were genuine. The same does not tantamount to creation of a legally binding obligation on the person submitting the apostilled document, in respect of the contents of the said document. Similarly, Notarisation of the document does not create a binding obligation, since it does not establish the ownership of the document. Thus, the fact that the Chinese certificate, or its translation was apostilled or notarized, is neither here, nor there.