The Bombay HC rejects Adani Ports plea against disqualification by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority. A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M.S. Karnik rejected the plea as non-meritorious and directed the companies to pay ₹ 5 lakh to JNPA.
The Bombay High Court on Monday dismissed the plea by Adani ports harbours and Special Economic Zone Limited of Adani ports challenging disqualification of its shot for upgrade of the vessel terminal in Navi Mumbai by the Board of Jawaharlal Nehru Port Authority (JNPA).
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M.S. Karnik rejected the Adani Port plea as non-meritorious and directed the companies to pay ₹ 5 lakh to JNPA. Since Adani harbours has initially submitted Rs4.25 lakh with the tender to JNPA, it will deposit the remaining ₹ 75, 000.
The Bench also refused Adani harbours’ request to maintain status quo and not open flings till it sought relief before the Supreme Court.
Request for Qualification
As per the plea the said bidding process consisted of two stages, the first stage was a global engagement of ‘ Request for Qualification ’( RFQ) seeking operation from interested parties. The alternate stage was where the applicants had to shoot their ‘ Request for Offer. Adani harbours had contended that after submitting its RFQ, the Board sought interpretations from them and also raised a query about the termination of concession agreement between Visakhapatnam Port Trust and Adani Vizag coal.
Although Adani responded to the said query and the Board conceded that the company had cleared the qualification stage the Board transferred a show cause notice asking why they should not be disqualified from the bidding process.
The plea also mentions, the Board’s notice came consequent to an order by the Andhra Pradesh High Court, in which the termination of the concession agreement was upheld. At last in a letter dated May 2, 2022 the Board issued a termination letter. Adani harbours Limited sought a direction from court to restrain the Board of Trustees from declaring the topmost bid and grant a stay if it has been done.
As per the bottommost logistic performance index report, JNPA is rated the swish performing harborage in the country with the topmost index value being 84.61.
