Law:

Section:

Public procurement--- ----Tender issued by the Civil Aviation Authority---Non-compliance of mandatory requirements of terms of the procurement document/tender by the bidders---"Mandatory requirements" and "ancillary requirements" of a procurement document/tender---Distinction, scope and effect---Petitioner participated in a tender issued by the Authority, and after submission of bids, the respondent bidder's technical offer was accepted despite existence of a deficiency in its bid as the respondent bidder had not enclosed the mandatory Technical Offer Form as required by the terms stated in the advertisement of the tender---Contention of the petitioner, inter alia, was that due to existence of said deficiency, the bid of the respondent bidder was liable to be rejected---Validity---Perusal of tender document revealed that the Technical Offer Form was a mandatory document to have accompanied the tender document---Authority committed a series of procedural missteps in opening of technical and financial offers by the bidders which had cast doubts on the transparency and validity of the entire process---Tender document clearly required the bidders to provide in an envelope, the Technical Offer Form, which was not done by the respondent bidder---Requirements contained in a tender notice could either be essential terms or ancillary terms (which were subsidiary to the main object), and while the former was mandatory, the latter could be deviated from and strict compliance thereof could be waived in appropriate cases---In the present case, the tender document clearly demonstrated that the Technical Offer Form was a mandatory requirement for which no relaxation could be awarded to the respondent bidder---Contention of the Authority that the same was not a material irregularity as it was inadvertently placed in the financial offer, was not therefore, tenable---Where there existed no power for relaxation, the same could not ordinarily be exercised and the parties must be held to strictly comply with essential conditions of the tender---Authority furnished no reasons as to why the lapse on part of the respondent bidder should not have operated as a competitive advantage to…

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