Madras HC quashes tender notice for Rs 258 cr desilting reservoir project

Chennai: The Madras high court has quashed the tender notice issued by the public works department, for the work of desilting the Sathyamoorthy Sagar Reservoir, Poondi in Tiruvallur taluk and district, involving '258 crore.

Allowing a petition from M.Kandan, a registered contractor, Justice V. Parthiban said in view of larger public interest of the state at stake, the respondents (authorities) are directed to initiate the tender process for the project as envisaged by them, immediately and they are directed to follow the mandatory provisions of the Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders

Act and the Tender Rules and they are further directed to obtain necessary environmental clearance. This court hopes that the respondents (authorities) would take necessary steps to re-initiate the process of tender as expeditiously as possible, the judge added.

The judge said this court has to come to the irresistible conclusion that by the impugned notification, the authorities have committed several violations of the provisions of the Tender Act and the Tender Rules.

The relevant documents were not made available for the bidders to download and view. In view of the absence of technical and other documents, the participation of genuine bidders was discouraged and the consequences of such discouragement would only undermine the public interest.

Since the project was a public project aimed at conserving the water bodies and storage of water, needless to mention that such huge projects need to be entrusted to the genuine contractors, who were well equipped to handle such huge projects. If the basic details including the technical difficulties, were not made available, hardly, there could be no wider participation in the tender process and in the absence of information, it was likely that the contract will be thrown open or eventually given to chosen persons.

Such scenario was not in furtherance in the scheme of either in Tender Act or in the Tender Rules, the judge added.

The judge said more importantly, the environmental clearance was required to be obtained for such huge projects and admittedly, no environmental clearance has been obtained by the authorities. As rightly contended by T.Mohan, counsel for the petitioner that only upon obtaining the environmental clearance,

the various factors associated with the project can be assessed and examined and such exercise will pay way for potential bidders to understand the gravity of the project in which they were likely to be involved with.

In the absence of such exercise, the project as envisaged for larger public purpose will lose its importance and such huge project will be reduced as routine government projects, which requires no extraordinary involvement of the stake holders. When the government envisages such colossal project which was laudable, having larger public interest, it was all the more reason that such projects were executed through proper tender notification in conformity with all the mandatory requirements of the Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Act and the Tender Rules, the judge added.

  The judge said such projects ought not to be proceeded with, without the mandatory environmental clearance, since the protection of environment was as much public interest as in the proposed project conceived by the government. Therefore, in the interest of all stake holders, viz., the government, people and the persons interested in the execution of the project, the authorities were duty bound to take all measures in conformity with the requirements of law. Such compliance by the authorities alone would result in wider participation of bidders across the Board and wider participation would further result in the project being executed by the best and the competent. Otherwise, the process of tender selection gets narrowed and the choice for the government becomes very limited and such scenario would only be against the public interest, he added.The judge said normally in such project, the court would be circumspect in intervening, since stalling of such projects would undermine the public interest, at the sa
me time, this court cannot remain mute and numb when such objections were being pointed out at the instance of the registered contractor. This court in fact was exploring to see whether there were minor infractions and the theory of substantial compliance could be applied in the larger public purpose and interest. But, unfortunately it appears that the objections raised by the petitioner were too serious and fundamental which could not be ignored just to uphold the tender notification, the judge added.