LexRASHMI METALIKS LTD. & ANR. versus KOLKATA METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY & ORS.
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(2013) 17 S.C.R. 345 RASHMI METALIKS LTD. & ANR. v. KOLKATA METROPOLITAN DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY & ORS. (Civil Appeal No. 6772 of 2013) SEPTEMBER 11, 2013 [T.S. THAKUR AND VIKRAMAJIT SEN, JJ.] A B Tender "'- Rejection of bid on ·the ground of non- compliance of one of the terms of the tenders viz. filing of C latest income tax return - Held: Filing of income tax return was not an essential, but only a collateral term - Hence rejection of bid (m this ground not justified. Tender - Rejection of bid - By the authority on the D ground of non-compliance of one of the terms of tender - • Courts below also upheld the rejection on that ground and did not discuss or analyse non-compliance of another term - In appeal to Supreme Court plea regarding non-compliance of another term, raised - Held: The party cannot advert to the E ground, to which the tendering authority had not adverted to - A party cannot be permitted to travel beyond the stand adopted in its (farlier decision - New plea - Raising of - Permissibility. • Precedent - Rule of precedence - Doctrine of stare F decisis - Held: The significant characteristic of doctrine of stare decisis is that the judgment withstands the onslaught of time and metamorphoses into high authority, demanding reverence and adherence. Practice and Procedure - Court proceedings - Practice of citing innumerable decisions - Held: Results in capital exhaustion of court time - The correct approach is to predicate arguments on the decisions which hold the field. G 345 H 346 SUPREME .COURT REPORTS [2013) 17 S.C.R. A The bid of .the appell11nt..Company was disqualified B on the ground that the sam~ did not comply with the terms envisaged in Clause 'J' of the invitation to tender, whereby the bidd.er was r1!quired to submit its latest income tax return alongwith its bid. The courts below held that the ·appellant-Company failed to comprehensively correspond to the essential terms of the tender in two respects: (a) the alleged blacklisting of the appellant-Company as postulated in C Clause (i) of the tender and (b) company's failure to furnish the latest income tax return as envisaged in Clause (j). However, the courts did not analyse the applicability anp relevance of Clause (i). In appeal to this Court, respondent also raised the D alleged violation of Clause (i) in addition to Clause (j). Allowing the appeal, the Court HELD: 1. So far as the rejection on the ground (i) of Tender of Notice is concerned,' this is~ue in its entirety E has become irrelevant for the reason that it does not feature as a reason for the impugn~d rejection. This ground should have been arti~ulated at the very inception itself, and now it is not forensically fair or permissible for the Authority or any of 'the Respondents to adopt this F ground for the first time in this second salvo of litigation by way of a side wind. The.impugned Judgment is indubitably a cryptic one and does not contain the reasons on which the' decision is predicated. Since reasons are not contained in the impugned Judgment G itself, it must be set aside' on the short ground that a party cannot be permitted to travel beyond the stand adopted and expressed by it in its earlier decision. [Para 12] [358- E-G] H Mohinder Singh Gill vs. The Chief Election RASHMI METALIKS LTD. v. KOLKATA METROPOLITAN 347 DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY Commissioner, New Delhi AIR 1978 SC 851: 1978 (2) SCR A 272 - relied on. 2. Clause (j) of the notice inviting E-tender is not an essential element or ingredient or concomitant of the subject NIT. In the course of hearing, the Income Tax B Return has been filed by the Appellant-company. The income tax was NIL, but substantial tax had been deposited. The Income Tax Return would have assumed the character of an essential term if one of the qualifications was either the gross income or the net income on which tax was attracted. In many cases this C is a salutary stipulation, since it is indicative of the commercial standing and reliability of the tendering entity. This feature being absent, We think that the filing of the latest Income Tax· Return was a collateral term, and accordingly the Tendering Authority ought to have D brought this discrepancy to the notice of the Appellant- company and if even thereafter no rectification had been carried out, the position may have been appreciably different. It has been asserted on behalf of the Appellant-
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