Shivani Thakur
Published on: June 28, 2022 at 18:37 IST
Adani Ports and Special Economic Zone Limited (Adani) has filed a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn a decision of the Bombay High Court that assessed costs of 5 lakh against it and rejected its appeal of the disqualification of its bid in relation to a tender issued by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA) for the upgrade of its container terminal in Navi Mumbai.
The Bench, however, asked Senior Counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi to mention the matter before the court registry.
“There is extraordinary urgency. I am leading India’s port manager and I was cleared as a bidder. I was disqualified later. Then, High Court gives a judgment yesterday and now they are offering the bid again. Kindly list the matter tomorrow,” Singhvi submitted.
“Go to registry,” the Bench said.
“Justice cannot be handwoven by procedures. Please order the same subject to registry, we will satisfy the registrar too. Even the Port Trust Representative is here. Please order them to not proceed on the judgment,” Singhvi insisted.
“Will see, go to vacation officer and registrar please,” the Bench maintained.
JNPA had sent out a global invitation seeking submissions from organizations interested in operating and maintaining its container terminal for a 30 year period.
The Board delivered a notice to the company requesting them to provide justification as to why they should not be disqualified from the tender before the bidding process could start.
Adani responded to the notice, and was granted personal hearing by the Board.
The Board informed Adani in a letter dated May 2 that VPT was unable to take part in the current bidding process since it had sent them a termination letter.
Adani then filed a lawsuit against the same at the Bombay High Court.
“The decision of JNPT to disqualify the petitioner (Adani) after having once declared it as qualified, to our mind, conforms to the settled law that JNPT was bound by the tender terms and conditions, which amounts to a representation to the public, and that any deviation would have amounted to a fraud on public,” the High Court ruled and dismissed the plea.