Hyderabad: In a major setback to the AP government, the Hyderabad High Court on Monday stayed a notification and addendum-cum-corrigendum issued by the commissioner of the Capital Region Development Authority (CRDA) for development of 6.84 sq. km start-up area at Amaravati till the disposal of petitions.
Justice Ramachandra Rao granted the interim stay on two petitions by Aditya Housing & Infrastr-ucture Development and Envian Engineers, seeking to declare the process followed by the CRDA in inviting bids for development of the startup area at Amaravati as illegal.
The judge held that the notification and the addendum-cum-corrigendum suffered from illegality and procedural impropriety apart from arbitrariness, jeopardising public interest, and fell within the exceptions mentioned in the Tata Cellular case by the Supreme Court.
Justice Rao pointed out that instead of the Swiss Challenge procedure that provides for transparency and enables interested applicants to provide their challenge bids, the respondents followed the sealed tender procedure, which did not reveal the financial bid of the Original Project Proponent till the technical bid is opened, depriving bidders of making counter challenges.
The judge noted that the process of Swiss Challe-nge, which under the Act, ought to commence with the “government agencies/local authority” and move finally to the government, has been reversed by obtaining the views of the government and then sen-ding it downwards to the “government agencies”.
The judge observed that the revenue share information of the proposer, which is required to be disclosed upfront, had been treated by respondents as “proprietary information”.
He said the state and its agencies had not seen the revenue share offered by the OPP so they could not have come to any conclusion that its proposal was beneficial to the state and in public interest.
He opined that very short timelines had been given to interested applicants to submit counter proposals as compared to the five month period availed by the OPP, and this did not provide a level playing field to the interested applicants.
He said, “Normally though this court would not grant stay on the tender process for development programmes as cautioned by the Supreme Court, it appears to me that this case falls within the excepted categories mentioned in the Tata Cellular case in order to justify an interim order.”
Reminding that the last date of submission of bids by the applicants to make a counter challenge was September 13, the judge said in the absence of data relating to the revenue share of the OPP, interested applicants had no time for filing their counter challenge. Therefore the interested parties were prima facie handicapped.
The judge said, “Since it is not possible to decide the merits of the main petitions before September 13, public interest and interests of the state would be better served by granting a stay of further proceedings pending disposal of the main petition so that the defects can be rectified early.”
