Actech Information Systems Ltd v. UOI &Ors

T.S. THAKUR, J.

ARUNA SURESH, J. April, 11, 2008 pk

* THE HIGH COURT OF DELHI AT NEW DELHI Date of Decision: 11th April, 2008 + W.P.(C) 1133/2008 M/S ACTECH INFORMATION SYSTEMS LTD. .... Petitioner Through Mr. Sunil Kumar, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Jitendra Kumar Jha, Adv. versus UOI & ORS ..... Respondents Through Mr. Rajeeve Mehra, Adv.with Ms. Divya Chaturvedi, Adv. CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE T.S. THAKUR HON'BLE MS. JUSTICE ARUNA SURESH 1. Whether reporters of local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? Yes 2. To be referred to the Reporter or not? Yes 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? Yes Per Thakur, J : Judicial review of administrative decisions is limited to examining whether the decision making process is vitiated by any illegality, procedural irregularity or perversity. The Court does not sit in appeal over the decision so long as the process leading to the same is found to be satisfactory and free from anyone of the infirmities mentioned above. In cases where the decision making process involves technical expertise, the scope of review gets further reduced. That is because the courts are not equipped with the expertise necessary to sit in judgment over the decisions taken by experts. The process of review shows deference to the opinions of the experts. The legal position on the subject is settled by a long line of decisions rendered by the Supreme Court to which we shall presently refer, but before we do so, we need to briefly set out the facts in the backdrop whereof the petitioner challenges the rejection of the technical bid offered by it for a certain scientific equipment being purchased by the respondents. What is however significant and may be stated at the threshold is that the rejection of the petitioner's technical bid is based entirely on the opinion of the experts according to whom the equipment offered by the petitioner did not satisfy the technical requirements stipulated in the request for proposal (RFP for short). The petitioner however contends that the said rejection was unfair inasmuch as while the Experts Committee had granted an opportunity to other bidders to make up the deficiencies in the equipment offered by them, no such opportunity was given to the petitioner. This, according to the petitioner, led to discrimination between parties that were similarly circumstanced and hence entitled to similar treatment. The respondents deny that allegation and urge that the evaluation of the technical bids submitted by the intending suppliers was undertaken by an Expert Committee which had adopted an objective standard that was applied uniformly to all the bidders. Inasmuch as the Committee had found that the petitioner's bid was not technically compliant on account of the "Data Logger" offered by it being not up to the required specifications, it committed no mistake leave alone an error bordering on perversity to warrant interference by this Court. It is also contended that the "Data Logger" offered by the petitioner was upon a proper evaluation, found to be unacceptable in terms of the requirements of the RFP which fact was admitted even by the petitioner in a communication dated 27th December, 2007 addressed after the technical evaluation of the bid whereby it had offered to remove the deficiencies in the machines it was selling. That belated offer was not however acceptable to the respondents who were proceeding under a time schedule for the supplies in question. In the circumstances, the rejection of the bid on the ground of non- compliance of the essential requirements of the RFP could not be described as illegal, irregular or in any way perverse. Time now to state a few facts. 2. Indian Meteorological Department (IMD for short) is operating a network of 125 Automatic Weather Stations (AWS for short) under what is described as Pseudo Random Burst Sequence (PRBS), technique of transmission through the Data Relay Transponder (DRT) of Kalpana-I satellite. These AWS are also compatible to INSAT series of satellites. In PRBS mode of t