Bidders cannot cure mandatory tender-document deficiencies by submitting fresh documents after the deadline.

The petitioner, a proprietorship registered under the MSME Act, participated in a BCST tender for security services at the IGSC Planetarium, Patna, and the Sub-Regional Science Centre, Bodh Gaya.

BCST disqualified his bid for failing to submit an HR self-certification stating the number of ex-servicemen on the agency’s payroll and turnover documents for the relevant financial years.

The petitioner challenged the disqualification, arguing that MSME registration and documents he later supplied should have sufficed, and alleging that the successful bidder was treated differently.

The respondents maintained that the documents were mandatory and that the petitioner had attempted to submit them after the bid deadline.

The Court found that the disputed documents were supplied only after the respondents raised the deficiencies.

1. Whether BCST lawfully disqualified the petitioner for failing to submit the required HR self-certification and turnover documents with his original bid.

2. Whether the petitioner established that the successful bidder was evaluated arbitrarily or on unequal terms.

The RFP’s technical evaluation requirements, including the specified documentary requirements, governed the bidding process; the Court considered the technical evaluation provisions in Clause 14.3 and the relevant tender conditions.

Tender conditions bind both the procuring authority and bidders, and mandatory requirements cannot be selectively relaxed in a manner that undermines fairness, transparency, or equality.

Relying on Central Coalfields Ltd. v. SLL-SML (Joint Venture Consortium), (2016) 8 SCC 622, the Court noted that the procuring authority is best placed to interpret tender terms, subject to fair and non-arbitrary exercise of discretion.

Relying on Banshidhar Construction Private Ltd. v. Bharat Coking Coal Ltd., (2024) 10 SCC 273, it applied the principle that a bidder ordinarily cannot cure a fundamental bid defect by supplying fresh documents after the deadline.

The Court held that the HR self-certification and turnover documents were required by the tender and had not accompanied the petitioner’s bid.

The opportunity to respond to identified deficiencies permitted clarification of documents already submitted, not the introduction of fresh documents after the deadline.

Permitting the petitioner to cure those omissions would have departed from the RFP and risked unequal treatment of other bidders.

The petitioner also failed to provide sufficient material showing that BCST had applied the tender criteria arbitrarily or discriminatorily in evaluating the successful bidder’s bid.

It dismissed the writ petition as without merit.