Ganesh Engg. Works [Poddar Steel Corpn. v.
Ganesh Engg. Works, (1991) 3 SCC 273] this
Court held as under: (SCC p. 276, para 6)
“6. … The requirements in a tender
notice can be classified into two
categories—those which lay down the
essential conditions of eligibility
and the others which are merely
ancillary or subsidiary with the
main object to be achieved by the
condition. In the first case the
authority issuing the tender may be
required to enforce them rigidly.
In the other cases it must be open
to the authority to deviate from
and not to insist upon the strict
literal compliance of the condition
in appropriate cases.”
“14. We must reiterate the words of
caution that this Court has stated right
from the time when Ramana Dayaram Shetty
v. International Airport Authority of
India [Ramana Dayaram Shetty v.
International Airport Authority of India,
(1979) 3 SCC 489] was decided almost 40
years ago, namely, that the words used in
the tender documents cannot be ignored or
treated as redundant or superfluous — they
must be given meaning and their necessary
14
significance. In this context, the use of
the word “metro” in Clause 4.2(a) of
Section III of the bid documents and its
connotation in ordinary parlance cannot be
overlooked.