TN govt produces copy of bulletin stating rejection of tender

Tamil Nadu government today told the Madras High Court that TANGEDCO has rejected the tenders of CSEPDI and BHEL for the 2660 MW Udangudi Supercritical Thermal Power Project in Tuthukodi District.
Advocate General A L Somayaji produced a copy of State Tender Bulletin in which it was published that in a board meeting held by Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation Limited (TANGEDCO) on March 13, it was decided to reject the bids submitted by Central Southern China Electric Power Design Institute, a Chinese Company (CSEPDI) and BHEL.
He referred to Rule 5 of the Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tenders Rule-2000 and submitted that the rule does not provide any communication of the reason for rejection to the petitioner/bidder.

CSEPDI had earlier contended that that they submitted a lowest bid on July 19, 2013 quoting Rs 8025.34 crores for the project.
The bids were opened on October 18, 2014 in the presence of the petitioner and BHEL, which offered a loan amount of 75 per cent of the total amout with an interest rate of 12.25 per cent.
CSEPDI said when they were waiting to receive intimation on the results of the bid, they came to know from newspapers that the bids for were scrapped for "technical deficiencies." However, they have not received any communication from TANGEDCO.

CSEPDI also prayed for a direction to produce all the relevant documents with regard to the scrapping of the bids to the power project.

Justice T S Sivagnanam had on March 23 directed TANGEDCO to submit the copy of the order scrapping the bids called for the project, following which Somayaji produced the copy of State Tender Bulletin rejecting the bids today.
After the copy of the bulletin was submitted, Justice Sivagnanam disposed the petition of CSEPDI and said "as could be seen from the State Tender Bulletin, TANGEDCO has taken the decision to reject both the bids for defects/infirmities mentioned in the notification. The reasons for rejection are contained in the bulletin."
The judge then gave liberty to the petitioner to work out its own remedy in the manner known to law.