In the alternative, the company wanted the government to reconduct the bidding process, a plea that was also rejected by the court on the ground that GEEC had not shown any bona fide intent in its attempt to submit a final bid.
GEEC submitted that its bid could not be completed due to a technical malfunction that arose at the critical stage of online price bid submissions on the e-bidding portal, which displayed that its net worth was insufficient.
A division bench comprising Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Amit Mahajan said a detailed examination of the audit trail report did not show evidence of any systematic malfunction.
The company’s allegation of a bid value or net worth validation error was also neither manifestly corroborated nor disproved by the logs provided by the operator of the e-bidding portal, the court said.
According to the judgment, the audit trail report clearly reflected multiple fragmented and incomplete activities on GEEC’s part, coupled with substantial lapses of time between one stage and another, despite being fully aware that the deadline for bid submission was approaching. Its action “clearly demonstrates a clear lack of diligence in completing the bidding process within the prescribed time,” the court said.
The government had refuted the company’s claims, arguing that the entire process was a system-driven programme and there was nothing to prove that it was on account of a technical glitch that GEEC failed to upload its financial bid.