Mumbai: The Bombay High Court on Friday cleared the decks for the redevelopment of Dharavi slums as it upheld the Maharashtra government’s tender for the project to the Adani Group, ruling there was no “arbitrariness, unreasonableness or distortion”.
A bench of Chief Justice DK Upadhyay and Justice Amit Borkar dismissed a petition filed by UAE-based Seclink Technology Corporation challenging the state government’s decision to award Mumbai’s mega redevelopment project to Adani Properties Pvt Ltd. proposal.
Noting that three bidders participated in the process, the bench rejected the petitioner’s contention that the tender was “tailor-made” for a particular firm of a private group.
Seclink Technologies was the highest bidder for the project in 2018, but the tender issued that year was canceled by the government.
The bench noted that the petition of SecLink Technologies lacked force and was therefore dismissed.
“The grounds urged in support of the petition lack force and accordingly, the challenge to impugned action on the part of the authorities, whereby the earlier tender process was canceled and fresh tender process was resorted to, fails,” the HC observed.
The Adani Group emerged as the highest bidder for the 259-hectare Dharavi redevelopment project in the heart of Mumbai and won the 2022 tender process with its Rs 5,069-crore offer.
In the first tender issued in 2018, the petitioner company emerged as the highest bidder with its offer of Rs 7,200 crore.
However, the government canceled the 2018 tender and issued a new tender in 2022 with additional conditions.
Seclink Technologies first challenged the Adani Group to cancel the 2018 tender and then the 2022 tender award. It alleged that the new tender was “tailor-made” for the Port-to-Energy group.
In its judgment, the court noted that the government had not taken any final decision in the 2018 tender process apart from a notice that the petitioner company was the highest qualified bidder.
“Though the petitioner’s bid was declared the highest, no decision was taken to select the successful bidder, neither was any letter of award issued nor was any contract signed,” the High Court said.
The court has also held that it is a principle that the bidder participating in the bidding process cannot ask for acceptance just because his bid is the highest or the lowest.
The bench noted the reasons given by the state government for canceling the 2018 tender process, in its view, could not be said to be “substantial or unfair or based on any malpractice”.
The decision taken by the government, he stressed, “shall not suffer from the vices of arbitrariness, unreasonableness or perversity”.
The court also refused to accept the petitioner’s contention that the 2022 tender terms were tailored to favor a particular company and that three bidders participated at that time out of which two were found to be technically qualified.
The state government had submitted to the High Court that the tender was awarded in a transparent manner and that no unfair advantage was shown to the Adani Group, the highest bidder.
The government said the 2018 tender was canceled and a new one was issued four years later due to several reasons, including the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine war affecting economic and financial conditions.
The first tender for the mega redevelopment project was issued in November 2018. The tender was opened in March 2019 and the petitioner company (Seclink Technologies) was found to be the highest bidder.
In the same month, according to the state government, the Indian Railways provided an additional 45 acres of land to the government for the redevelopment project.
The government claimed that “no contract was formed” between the state and the petitioner company and therefore had no legal authority in the matter.
In November 2020, a government proposal was issued to cancel the first tender claiming that there had been material changes to the tender conditions after the “bid date”.
The government has claimed that a new bid should be submitted in the new tender and the petitioner can submit a new bid by complying with its conditions.
Dharavi is a sprawling slum with a mix of residential and small industrial units.
Opposition parties in Maharashtra, including the Shiv Sena (UBT) and the Congress, had strongly opposed the awarding of the tender to the Adani Group, alleging irregularities in the entire process, a charge denied by the coalition government.
The redevelopment of Dharavi, one of the world’s densest urban sprawls, featured prominently in the November 20 assembly election campaign.
Shiv Sena (UBT) chief Uddhav Thackeray had said that if his party came to power in Maharashtra, the Dharavi slum redevelopment tender awarded to the Adani Group would be scrapped.
“Once we come to power, we will cancel the tender for the Dharavi slum redevelopment project. We will not allow Mumbai to turn into an Adani city,” the former chief minister said.
Additional concessions which are not specified in the contract have been given to the Adani group, Thackeray alleged.
Mumbai Congress president Varsha Gaikwad called the project “world’s biggest land scam” and said the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) would scrap it if it returned to power.
Shiv Sena (UBT) and Congress MVA are part of the opposition bloc.