The Bombay high court recently refused to grant relief to a UK-based electric vehicle start-up company, Causis E-Mobility Pvt Ltd, challenging its disqualification of the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST) from the tender for 1,400 electric buses.
A consortium of three companies had participated in the tender process of BEST. BEST rejected the tender of the petitioner company on the ground that it is technically incomplete and allegedly deviating from tender specifications.
However, the company claimed in its petition that the BEST incorrectly declared its bid to be “technically non-responsive”.
A vacation bench of Justice AK Menon and Justice N R Borkar, last week, refused to grant it relief and kept it for hearing in June.
The company’s plea contended that after inviting bids for 1,400 electric buses for Mumbai region, it considered technical qualifications and compliance of various bidders. It then rejected five out of eight bids for allegedly being “technically non-responsive”.
The grievance was that it had complied with “mandatory technical and commercial eligibility criteria” in the tender and was yet treated as disqualified by BEST.
One of the members of the consortium -- Canada-based Golden Properties Limited – had told the BEST that electric buses of its partner Eurabus GmbH had been successfully running in other parts of the world.
It further added that Golden Properties has the capacity to produce more than 1,500 buses a year and they have an electric bus manufacturing facility across Europe and India which could be treated as compliance with the eligibility criteria.
Its plea further contended that the company has an arrangement with one Azad Coach Private Limited in Rajasthan which has experience of manufacturing and delivering 1317 HSD buses in India.
The company sought urgent relief stating that BEST had taken a hasty decision as it believed that BEST was to issue “letter of acceptance” any time following which its petition will become infructuous.
Refusing ad-interim relief, the HC said: “In our view, any arrangement with Azad Coach Pvt Ltd will not qualify as compliance with condition no. 2 of the Technical and Commercial Eligibility Criteria since Azad Coach Pvt Ltd is not one of the members of the consortium. Thus, prima facie we find that there is no case to grant any ad-interim relief. Hence, ad-interim relief is refused.”
Early this week, the HC has issued notice to BEST on a petition filed by Tata Motors challenging its May 6 decision, disqualifying the latter from the same tender for 1,400 electric buses on account of alleged deviation from tender specifications.
