HC upholds rejection of L&T’s bids for Thane- Borivali underground tunnels

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court last week rejected two petitions filed by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Limited wherein the company challenged the rejection of two of its bids for the 11

MUMBAI: The Bombay high court last week rejected two petitions filed by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) Limited wherein the company challenged the rejection of two of its bids for the 11.84km (5.75km+6.09km) long Thane–Borivali underground twin tunnel project.

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The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) had floated tenders for the twin tunnel project in January 2023. It is to be built under the Sanjay Gandhi National Park at a cost of ₹11,000 crore.

In the petitions, L&T had sought direction to the MMRDA to quash and set aside the rejection of its bid for package 1 (5.75km Borivali side of the project) and in the second petition, sought a declaration from MMRDA that it was the successful bidder for package 2 (6.09km Thane side of the project).

The court, however, held that both petitions were devoid of any merit and hence dismissed them. The ₹11,000-crore six-lane road project including a nearly 11-km long twin tube tunnel is expected to reduce the travel time between Thane and Borivali from around one-and-half hours to 15-20 minutes.

The division bench of justice R D Dhanuka and justice Gauri Godse, while hearing the petitions filed by L&T, was informed by senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas that the first petition challenged rejection by the MMRDA of their bid on the grounds that no technical capacity document was submitted by the company for package 1. The second petition challenged the rejection of the bid for package 2 by the MMRDA on the grounds that its financial bid amount was higher than the other bidders in the fray.

Dwarkadas claimed that the company had submitted its proposal on April 6 and later provided technical capacity document based on a request by the MMRDA on April 21. The bench was informed that the document showed that L&T had done tunneling work for the Doha Metro project and it was assumed that the same would be valid for both the packages.

However, on April 25, L&T received an email informing them that its technical bid for package 1 was rejected due to lack of documents showing their experience. The company’s bid for package 2 was held valid and the process moved on to the stage of financial bid.

The final amount with tax of the financial bid of the company for package 2 was inadvertently mentioned in the column meant for final amount without tax and though the company sought to correct the same, but the MMRDA rejected its request as well as its financial bid.

Dwarkadas submitted that the rejection of both bids should be set aside, as the decisions were arbitrary and perverse. He added that the decision-making process of the Respondent (MMRDA) was mala fide or intended to benefit the successful bidder and the Court had ample power to interfere with the decision-making process.

He submitted that even the successful bidder had not submitted two separate Work Experience Certificate initially and hence L&T should be declared successful bidder for package 2.

Senior advocate Milind Sathe for the MMRDA opposed the petitions and submitted that the tender conditions were clearly mentioned, and the company had failed to comply with the same.

He submitted that L&T had to submit two separate work experience certificates - one for each package but had submitted only one certificate, hence the rejection in package 1 was justified. He further added that the request of L&T to rectify its error after the financial bid was opened could not be allowed, as per the norms, and hence both petitions should be dismissed.

After hearing both the parties, the bench dismissed the petitions. “In our view, there is no merit in any of the contentions raised by Mr. Dwarkadas, learned senior counsel for the Petitioner. Both Petitions are devoid of merit and are accordingly dismissed.”