Delhi HC: ₹12.5 Crores cost imposed on firm for Concealing Facts

Delhi High Court Law Insider

Roopa S

Published on: 02nd June, 2022 at 17:43 IST

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday imposed costs of ₹12.5 crore on a private firm, SARR Freight Corporation for concealing facts from the Court.

A Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Jasmeet Singh stated that, the company had concealed information regarding its ‘blacklisting’ because of which it was declared L-1 bidder for a government project.

If the company had come out clean and disclosed its blacklisting, it would not have had the opportunity to make a gain of ₹12.50 crore as profit and, therefore, the money should be ploughed back into the society and money paid as cost should be used for installing smog towers in Delhi which has been gasping for breath due to high pollution levels.

“…we direct that the entire amount of ₹12.5 crores shall be deposited by respondent No.3 with the Registrar General of the Delhi High Court within 2 weeks from today. The Registrar General will call all the stakeholders and ensure that the smog tower is installed (maybe of a lesser capacity) at a suitable place where it will contribute towards reducing the AQI levels of Delhi. The Registrar shall take steps on a war footing to ensure the installation and operationalization of the smog tower before the advent of winter season as the situation further aggravates during winter months,” the Judgment said.

The Bench was dealing with a Petition by a company, CJDARCL Logistics Limited, seeking directions to a government company RITES Ltd to cancel the bids of the SARR and to award the tender to the Petitioner on account of being the L1 bidder.

It was Petitioner’s case that the RITES first opened the commercial bids in an erroneous manner and then opened the technical bids after which it was declared as L2 bidder while SARR was declared L1.

The Court also imposed a cost of ₹25 lakh on RITES for awarding the tender to SARR despite learning that it was liable to be disqualified under the terms and conditions. Cost imposed on RITES has to be paid to the Petitioner in the case.

“Once respondent No.1 (RITES) learnt that respondent No.3 (SARR) was liable to be disqualified under the terms and conditions, it could not have proceeded to award the contract to respondent No.3 in an arbitrary and discriminatory manner. The petitioner was found to be technically qualified. The respondent no.1 could have proceeded to award the contract to the petitioner, but it could not have awarded the same to respondent No.3,” the Court said.

The matter will now be considered on July 4, 2022 for compliance of orders.

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