Published on: October 11, 2023 at 10:425 IST
Court: Supreme Court of India
Citation: BTL EPC Ltd. V. Macawber Beekay (P) Ltd. (2023)
Honourable Supreme Court of India has held that it is settled law that the Court should exercise restraint in exercising the power of judicial review in contracts involving complex technical issues. It is held that even if a party to the contract is ‘State’ within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, the Court should not readily interfere in Commercial or Contractual matters in the Writ Jurisdiction.
36. The Court ought to defer to the discretion of the tender inviting authority which, by reason of having authored the tender documents, is best placed to interpret their terms. The Courts ought not to sit as courts of appeal but review the decision-making process and examine arbitrariness or mala fides, if any.
37. Even in a writ appeal, it is well settled that the Division Bench would ordinarily not interfere with the judgment of a Single Judge unless it suffers from perversity or error.
39. At this stage, the High Court has, while setting aside the award of the contract to the appellant, directed that the bid which was submitted by the first respondent shall be considered in terms of the Notice Inviting Tenders.
Though during the course of the hearing, the first respondent has made a statement through senior counsel that it would match the bid which was submitted by the appellant, there can be no gainsaying the fact that this will cause insuperable difficulties in the implementation of the contract since the work under the contract has progressed.
While the appellant was placed on notice that this would not create any special equities in its favour, there is apart from the interest of the appellant which is a private entity, the interest of both the Telangana State Power Generation Company Limited and of BHEL, both of which are public entities which have invested funds for the realization of the project involving the setting up of the 5 × 800 MW thermal power plant.
Drafted By Abhijit Mishra
