The High Court of Bombay Rejects the Plea of a Private Firm against Adani Group
Dharavi is the largest slum area in Asia with a population of one million based on the research given by Story Maps in 2024. It is one of the highly populated areas in India with limited facilities to the families who live there. To establish a developed infrastructure the state government of Maharashtra has implemented a visionary project called ‘Dharavi Redevelopment Project’. A bid has been conducted by the MH government which was won by Adani Group, the leading business company in the world.
In 2023, the Dubai based company, SecLink Technologies Corporation, filed a case against Adani Group bid by stating their 2018 bid which was higher the then year and later it was cancelled due to the influence of Adani.
Accusations of SecLink over Adani
- 2019 – the bid of SecLink is reported as ₹7,200 crore
- A new tender process has been introduced by Maharashtra government in 2022
- They cancelled the 2019 bid and handed over the project to Adani Infrastructure Developers Pvt.Ltd for ₹5,069 crore bid
- In addition to that, a 45 acres of railway land was included which was not a part in the original proposal
- SecLink accuse that with the help of the legal advice (from advocate General Ashutosh Kumbhakoni) these changes was included
- They also allege the government that all these efforts were made to favour the Adani Group which led to the loss of ₹8,424 crore(for SecLink)
Plea Rejected
On Friday, December 20, 2024, the bench of Justice DK Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar of Bombay High Court observed the petition of the private firm against Adani Group and stated that,
“As far as the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner that tender conditions were tailor-made to suit a particular tenderer, we may observe that in response to the fresh tender three bidders had participated out of which two bids were found to be technically qualified. Meaning thereby, at least two bidders fulfilled the technical conditions and therefore, since there were more than two bidders in the field who participated out of which two technically qualified, it cannot be said that the tender conditions were tailor-made so as to suit only a particular bidder”.
The court added that it (SacLink) did not have any vested right to win the contract and their loss does not have the power to invalidate/cancel the decision of the government over the tender process.
“It is a settled position of law that one who has not participated even in the pre-bid meeting cannot be permitted to challenge the terms and conditions of the tender” added the Court order.
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