MUMBAI: Tata Motors on Tuesday alleging corruption in selection of a winning bidder by the BEST for its electric buses contract sought orders from Bombay high court for a fresh rendering process. The BEST and wining bidder refuted the contention as irresponsible and inappropriate and sought dismissal of a petition filed by Tata Motors.
The high court concluded the hearing in a legal battle launched by the Tata group company against the civic body’s BrihanMumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST). The company has moved HC to challenge its ouster from the bidding process for 2100 e-buses for Mumbai.
Senior counsel A M Singhvi for Tata Motors said: "the only solution left is to call for fresh tender. This whole process is vitiated."
"We are talking of threshold exclusion," he said adding, "The only test is whether it is fair to exclude me (Tata Motors) only on this ground."
The contract "in favour of Evey Trans Pvt Ltd is tainted with arbitrariness, discrimination, favouritism, collusion and corruption," said Tata Motors.
At the hearing before a bench of Justices SV Gangapurwala and Madhav Jamdar on Monday and Tuesday the contentions by Singhvi were that the "undertaking bent the rules deliberately" to make Evey Trans the successful bidder in the tender.
Tata’s bid was "technically non responsive" said the BEST as it deviated from the bid conditions.
For BEST senior counsel Venkatesh Dhond argued that requirement that buses should run 200 Kms in actual conditions and not lab conditions. Relying on the tender terms, Dhond said that BEST was well within its rights to specify standards that are superior to central motor vehicle rules (CMVR) norms and exceed CMVR requirements and that it wanted its buses to run for 200 Kms without stoppage, in actual conditions which is higher standard than CMVR. He stated that Tata Motors wanted to replace actual conditions with theoretical standard and not give on-road guarantee.
Singhvi said General Finance Rules, 2017 which are binding on all procurement projects involving public money require the tendering authorities to mention recognised national standards of technical specifications in the tender to ensure transparency, consistency, unambiguity and fair competition between the bidder.
Singhvi said tender specifically prohibited the bidders from contacting BEST during the process of technical evaluation and if any clarifications were required, only BEST could have approached the bidders seeking such clarifications, but said the winning bidder changed its submission two hours prior to the decision. "Let the winning bidder put its hand on its heart and say there was no deletion of Annexure."
Dhond said He said it is the undertaking’s past experience that buses that meet range requirements in test conditions don’t meet them in actual conditions.
He also said that the General Finance Rules cited by Singhvi are not applicable on the undertaking as it is not under the Central Government.
Somasekhar Sundaresan, Counsel for Evey Trans Pvt Ltd. Said the bids were for Wet Lease which includes operation of buses and was performance oriented. He argued that Tata Motors tried to change the performance standard by way of the deviation written in its bid when all other bidders unconditionally assured the operating range sought by the BEST.
Sundaresan for Evey said it had made no deviation in its bid and only changed “an inadvertent error” no sooner after realising it, via a May 6 email.
Sundaresan also said, "The metric to be met in the tender was one of performance and not one of manufacturing standard. The manufacturing standard and the rating at manufacture and at the time of supply are industry standards. It is trite to say that every lessor’s buses must meet that standard."
Regarding allegations by Tata Motors of collusion, Dhond said that Evey Trans sent the official communication regarding the correction of its bid to the BEST and not to any individual and is in no way suggestive or indicative of them being hand in glove.
Singhvi said the HC had wide powers to do justice and sought orders for fresh tenders to be floated and award of contract be completed within 3 months. He said that no public interest will be impacted as the earlier tender of 2021 for electric buses was scrapped in February 2022 in which Tata Motors was the L-1 bidder and the present tender was floated on 26th February.
The winning bidder’s counsel also said: "the Petitioner (Tata Motors) has been rightly disqualified" and its "vociferous attempt to have (Evey) disqualified is without merit."
The HC has sought written submissions from all parties by Thursday and will pass orders thereafter.
