A joint venture bid may be rejected for defective disclosures and experience spanning different financial years.

The petitioners, a joint venture comprising M/s Prince Construction Company and M/s Mohan Construction, participated in a tender issued by the Uttarakhand Public Works Department for surface improvement, reconstruction and conversion of a pedestrian path into a motor road, along with causeway construction in Nainital District.

The Technical Evaluation Committee declared their bid non-responsive on 11 August 2026 on the grounds that Tech-2 had not been submitted in the prescribed joint-venture format and that the quantities disclosed in Tech-9 did not correspond to the Standard Document for Procurement of Works requirement of completing the specified works in any one of the preceding five financial years.

1. Whether the Technical Evaluation Committee lawfully rejected the petitioner’s bid on the ground that the Tech-2 form did not properly disclose the joint-venture partner’s name and legal status.

2. Whether the work experience disclosed in Tech-9 satisfied the requirement that the specified quantities of work be executed in any one of the five financial years.

3. Whether the Technical Evaluation Committee’s decision dated 11 August 2026 was arbitrary, erroneous or illegal and liable to be quashed.

The Court applied the tender conditions contained in the Standard Document for Procurement of Works. Under the Tech-2 requirement, a bidder was required to disclose the prescribed particulars, including the bidder’s name and constitution or legal status; in a joint venture, the relevant particulars of its constituent partners had to be correctly furnished.

Under the Tech-9 requirement, the bidder had to demonstrate execution of the stipulated minimum quantities of the specified works in any one of the five financial years preceding the tender.

The Court found that the Tech-2 form relating to M/s Mohan Construction did not correctly identify the joint-venture partner: instead of disclosing the firm’s name, it referred to “Mohan Singh Bisht Partner’s of M/s Sarvoday Colony,” and the column concerning legal status contained only an address. These were not mere formal defects because the form failed to disclose both the identity and legal status of the constituent bidder accurately.

The Court further held that the Tech-9 disclosures did not satisfy the substantive requirement of demonstrating the requisite experience in a single financial year. The experience attributed to M/s Prince Construction Company was for 2025–26, whereas that attributed to M/s Mohan Construction was for 2021–22 and 2022–23; therefore, the disclosed experience was spread across different years rather than established within one common financial year. On this basis, the Committee’s decision was found to conform to the tender conditions and was neither erroneous nor illegal.

The writ petition was dismissed for lack of merit, and any pending applications were also disposed of.