Ambika Bhardwaj
Published On: February 01, 2022 at 16:29 IST
Supreme Court in the Case of Agmatel India Pvt. Ltd. v. Resoursys Telecom & Ors. noted that Constitutional Courts must exercise restraint in Cases requiring interpretation of Tender Documents.
A Bench comprising of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath ruled that the author of the Tender Document is the best person to understand its requirements and that the technical evaluation by Courts of such documents is not allowed.
Two appeals were filed questioning a Delhi High Court decision that denied the technical disqualification and subsequent rejection of Resoursys Telecom’s technical bid in relation to a Tender floated by Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti (NVS).
After disqualifying Resoursys, NVS accepted an offer from Agmatel India.
The Tender was about the supply 68,940 electronic tablets for schoolchildren. The condition that led to the conflict concerned bidders’ experience and past performance.
The requirement for products in the same or similar category was the source of contention in the Appeals.
The problem before the Supreme Court was whether the High Court was justified in interrupting with NVS’s decision to reject the technical bid.
After opening the technical bids, NVS turned down Resoursys’ bid, citing a ‘technical specification mismatch’ as the reason for the rejection.
Resoursys filed a Writ Petition before the High Court. The High Court ruled that rejection of the technical bid of Resoursys was inappropriate and unjustifiable, and ordered NVS to reconsider its technical bid.
On Appeal, the Supreme Court stated that the scope of Judicial Review in contractual matters, especially the procedure of tender document interpretation, has been the topic of discussion in its numerous decisions.
Hence, the decision of the Delhi High Court was overruled by the Supreme Court.
