The Delhi High Court has recently upheld the disqualification of a bid in an Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) Tender, owing to the non-mentioning of certified information by Chartered Accountant (CA) in UDIN Certificate.
The Division Bench of Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora dismissed the writ petition against disqualification of the bid.
The petitioner, represented by Raj Shekhar Rao, Senior Advocate, along with Anupam Dwivedi and Vishweshwar Mishra, Advocates, argued that they had submitted all necessary documents, including Annexures B, D, and E, as per the tender requirements.
However, IRCTC had rejected their bid citing discrepancies in the information provided by their Chartered Accountant in the UDIN certificates downloaded from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) website.
On the other side, IRCTC, represented by Saurav Agarwal, Anshuman Chowdhary, and Saloni Paliwal, Advocates, defended their decision, stating that UDIN certificates are crucial to verify the authenticity of Chartered Accountant certificates and also that Sunshine Caterers’ certificates did not meet the required standards.
After considering both parties’ arguments, the Acting Chief Justice Manmohan and Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora dismissed the petition, citing that the discrepancies in the UDIN certificates provided by Sunshine Caterers were substantial and warranted the rejection of their bid. The court noted that the information certified in the Annexures was not reflected appropriately in the UDIN certificates, leading to doubts about their accuracy.
“The stated purpose of UDIN is to enable the third parties such as the Respondent and tendering authority, to verify, the authenticity of the certificate(s) issued by the Chartered Accountant, online through the UDIN portal”, the bench observed,
The Delhi High Court Bench also noted that, “the stand of the Respondent in disqualifying the technical bid of the Petitioner on the ground that the information certified by the Chartered Accountant as Annexure(s) B, D and E cannot be verified on the UDIN portal is not arbitrary or irrational.”
It was also observed that, “The Respondent has as per its stand uniformly disqualified all bidders where the certified information was not mentioned by the Chartered Accountants in the UDIN certificate.”
Dismissing the petition, the Delhi High Court Division Bench noted that, “The Petitioner during arguments was unable to explain the information appearing as “1..:0;2..:0” in the field ‘Figures/Particulars’ in the UDIN certificate(s) for Annexure B and Annexure E. Since, the Petitioner itself is unable to explain the said field, we cannot fault the Respondent for rejecting the said UDIN certificate(s).”
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