Author Of Tender Document Is The Best Person To Interpret Its Documents And Requirements, Reiterates Supreme Court

[31 January 2022] The author of the tender document is the best person to interpret its documents and requirements, the Supreme Court reiterated in a judgment delivered on 31 January 2021.
The bench comprising Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath observed that the interference by the Court would arise only if the questioned decision suffers from illegality, irrationality, mala fide, perversity, or procedural impropriety.

The court added that a decision of the administrative authority cannot be called arbitrary or whimsical merely because it does not appear plausible to the Court.

The court was considering an appeal filed against the Delhi High Court Judgment which had allowed the writ petition filed by Resoursys Telecom and disapproved the technical disqualification and consequential rejection of the technical bid of writ petitioner in respect of a tender floated by the Navodaya Vidyalaya Samiti. The tender inviting authority, i.e., NVS, had rejected the technical bid of writ petitioner for want of fulfilment of ‘Past Performance’ criterion about supply of ‘same or similar Category Products’ of 60% of bid quantity in at least one of the last three financial years. The tender notice in question was issued for supply of Tablets for the students of Class XI and XII.