Court Can’t Substitute Or Supplant Opinion Taken By Technical Or Financial Evaluation Committees With Its Own View: Delhi High Court

The Delhi High Court held that the Court cannot substitute or supplant the view taken or opinion rendered by the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) or Financial Evaluation Committee (FEC) with its own view.

The Court held thus in a Writ Petition filed by a company seeking setting aside of the award under the Request for Proposal (RFP) floated by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela observed, “… the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC)/Financial Evaluation Committee are a committee consisting of experts on the subject which is highly technical. This Court cannot substitute or supplant the view taken or opinion rendered by the TEC/FEC with its own view. Thus, the decision as to whether the rate quoted by the petitioner is appropriate or not, the time projected for execution of each unit of the Packet 1 or Packet 2, the ratio of assignments expected in respect of both packets would remain constant or vary over the years etc., are not the domain of this Court.”

The Bench reiterated that there is no complete bar or prohibition upon a constitutional Court exercising powers of judicial review even in contractual matters provided there is any violation of the conditions of the contract, or that the action is perverse or actuated with mala-fides and that the Court exercises very limited jurisdiction but there is no total prohibition either.

Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi represented the Petitioner, while Senior Advocate Darpan Wadhwa represented the Respondent.

Brief Facts

The Petitioner company was engaged in the business of providing diverse document management, Business Process Services (BPO), Cloud and Data Centre Services, digital storage solutions, and digitization services across the country. An RFP was floated by the Respondent-UIDAI and was awarded to the Petitioner. Consequently, an agreement was entered into between the Petitioner and UIDAI for providing services for two years, which was extended from time to time. Thereafter, UIDAI floated another RFP and the same was also awarded to the Petitioner as it was declared as L-1. Subsequently, an agreement was executed between them for similar services for two years. Vide a Corrigendum, the said agreement took effect and was made valid up to July 8, 2024, or until the operations commence by the service provider appointed through RFP. Pursuantly, an RFP was issued and the bidders were required to perform two processes. i.e., Quality Check with documents along with Online document verification (Digital Process) and Quality Check with documents without Online document verification (Physical Process).

The Petitioner emerged as the highest-scoring bidder (T-1) in the technical bid of the RFP, followed by the opening of the financial/commercial bid. However, a technical error on the portal prevented the financial/commercial bids of the bidders from being displayed and several correspondences were exchanged between the Petitioner and the UIDAI regarding the technical glitch and the bid validity period of the Petitioner, which was later extended. The Petitioner was declared as the L-1 bidder (bidder with the lowest “rate per packet”). Allegedly, the Petitioner did not receive any communication from UIDAI after providing the clarification letter. Being aggrieved by the alleged arbitrary conduct of the UIDAI in refusing to issue a Letter of Intent to the Petitioner and awarding the contract to another bidder, without issuing any notice to the Petitioner, it was before the High Court.

Court’s Observations

The High Court in the above regard, said, “… Aadhaar Authority is no stranger to the “low price” bid or, in other words, “abnormally low” bid quoted by the petitioner, and two, there is no doubt about the technical capability of the petitioner to execute the services required under the RFP, particularly, Packet-2.”

The Court noted that despite the errors and flaws on the part of the Aadhaar Authority, it had provided the Petitioner ample opportunity to explain and justify the objections raised by it.

“The petitioner had availed of such opportunities twice, by furnishing detailed reasons and justification vide the letters dated 23.07.2023 and 07.08.2023. The FEC dealt with each and every reason/explanation offered by the petitioner minutely with reasons of its own as to how such justification was not satisfactory. Apparently, the principles of natural justice as applicable to the administrative authorities, appear to have been fully complied with by the Aadhaar Authority. Further, it appears that the Aadhaar Authority has already awarded the contract and has been implemented. Any interference at this stage may not be in the larger public interest”, it remarked.

The Court further reiterated that administrative decisions are not evaluated on the same pedestal as Judgements of Courts of law.

“We see no reason to differ with the legal principle laid in the aforesaid judgments, however, in the present case inspite of the Aadhaar Authority not properly following the procedure prescribed in Clause 2.4.4 of the RFP, the petitioner was afforded an opportunity to justify and explain the objections raised which were considered in accordance with law. We have also held above that the error in not following the prescribed procedure and the follow up action thereafter, does not render the actions undertaken, susceptible to interference by this Court”, it added.

The Court also observed that the reasons attributed by the FEC for rejection appear to be justified and in larger public interest.

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the Writ Petition and declined to interfere in the impugned action.

Cause Title- Writer Business Services Pvt. Ltd. v. Unique Identification Authority of India (Neutral Citation: 2025:DHC:9119-DB)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate Sandeep Sethi, Advocates Achyuth Ajith Kumar, Shyam Gopal, Sumer Seth, and Riya Kumar.

Respondent: Senior Advocate Darpan Wadhwa, SPC Rakesh Kumar, Advocates Shraddha Deshmukh, Utkarsh, Sanchit Singh, Divita Vyas, and Sunil.

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