Mumbai The Bombay High Court on Tuesday reserved its order on a petition filed by Tata Motors challenging the Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport’s decision to disqualify it from the tender process for operating electric buses in and around Mumbai. Go.
In a writ petition filed before the court, the auto major also alleged that BEST’s decision to award contract for 2,100 e-buses to EV Trans Pvt. Ltd. accused of favoritism and corruption.
Senior advocate Abhishek Manu Singhvi, appearing for Tata Motors, said, “BEST’s action of awarding a large contract of 2,100 electric buses in favor of EV Trans is tainted with arbitrariness, discrimination, favoritism, corruption and collusion.”
Singhvi alleged that the contract was awarded due to exceptional circumstances, in which tender conditions were flouted and rules were deliberately ignored to declare Eway Trans as the successful bidder.
BEST invited bids to operate state carriage services of 1,400 single-decker air-conditioned e-buses in Mumbai and its suburbs on a 12-year gross cost contract model.
Subsequently, Tata Motors filed a technical and financial bid for the tender after a pre-bid meeting, during which it requested BEST to modify certain parameters, which were agreed upon. Meanwhile, BEST issued a technical suitability assessment, which was wrongly labeled as “technically non-responsive” by Tata Motors.
BEST’s senior counsel Venkatesh Dhond argued in response to the petition, “Tata Motors withdrew from situations where it had planned to offer models under simulated settings using automotive industry standard measurements.”
Although Tata Motors said it had requested deviations from relevant standards for testing the range of buses, BEST disqualified it from the tender process, without any explanation for denying its request.
When the high court asked BEST how it would assess whether the bid is genuine and the operational limit declared is correct, its counsel Dhond clarified that the valuation was based on the limits specified by the bidders and the contract was not merely an order. For sale of buses, but to operate them and to ensure it was on the bidder.