Govt E-Marketplace Portal Is Need Of The Hour, In Best Interest Of Buyers & Sellers: Allahabad High Court

The Allahabad High Court has observed that the Government e Marketplace Portal for procuring goods and services is a “need of the hour”. The Court noted that the mechanism followed by the portal and the steps taken by the Government to procure all goods and services through this portal is in the best interest of buyers and sellers.The bench comprising of Justice Mahesh Chandra Tripathi and Justice Prashant Kumar observed “It is a technology-driven platform to facilitate procurement of goods and services of various government departments. Introduction of such portal was actually a need of the hour. This platform does the comparison process and automatically choose by using an auto-run method to find the 'L-1'. This portal further eliminates any interference in placing the order and processing the payment.”Further, the Court observed that “The platform actually sends digital notifications to all the registered vendors and to the buyers who intends to buy any goods or services. It also ensures a cashless time-bound payment directly to the bank. This also increases the competition, whereby, the government are able to procure the goods and services at a very competitive rate. The steps taken by the government to all the goods and services procured through this portal is in the best interest to both buyers and sellers.”It may be noted that the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) is the National Public Procurement Portal for the procurement of goods and services for Central and State Government Organisations.The Court further held that a bidder cannot challenge tender conditions unless they have been introduced arbitrarily or with a malafide intent. It was observed that the Government is free to set any tender conditions. The Court also observed that “The petitioner has no vested right to get the agreement extended by one year.”Factual BackgroundPetitioner is in the business of supplying trained security guards. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) floated a tender for 'Supply of Security Personnels' in which the petitioner was a successful bidder. Consequently, an agreement was executed to supply security guards to respondents for a period of seven years, from 2007 to 2015. Thereafter, the work was allotted to another company from 2015 to 2022. The tender was extended by one year. In May 2022, respondents published a tender in various newspapers and also uploaded it on the GeM (Government e Marketplace) Portal as it is mandatory for the State to put all government tenders on the GeM portal. During the pendency of the tender proceedings, an agreement was executed between the petitioner and respondents on 31.08.2022 for providing security guards for one year.In June, 2023, before the period of agreement would come to an end, respondents published a fresh e-tender inviting companies to provide security guards. It was mandatory for the bidders to be empanelled with the DGR and only those empanelled bidders could have applied for the tender. Petitioner alleged that due to new conditions being imposed, it was unable to participate in the tender. Counsel for the petitioner contended that no proper advertisement for the tender was made. It was argued that the GeM portal is not the right place to call for tender. A new tender condition regarding empanelment with DGR was arbitrary and illegal. It was also contended that the tender of the petitioner was deemed to have been extended under the terms of the agreement, accordingly a new tender could not have been floated. Lastly, it was argued that the petitioner had invested huge money in anticipation of the renewal of the tender, and if it is not renewed petitioner will suffer irreparable loss. Defending the new tender, counsel for the respondent argued that the petitioner had no vested right for renewal of tender. The Clause relied upon by the petitioner required mutual consent and there was no consent on behalf of the respondents to extend the tender of the petitioner. It was argued that GeM portal was introduced to eliminate corruption and human errors in the tender process. Amongst other things, inviting tender on the GeM portal has the mandatory condition of being empanelled with DGR as it has been prescribed in the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Finance and the Government of India. It was further argued that conditions of the bid can only be challenged if they are changed with a malafide intent. In the absence thereof, the ineligible bidder cannot challenge tender conditions. High Court VerdictThe Court observed that the GeM portal was launched by the Commerce & Industry Minister with technical support of National e-Governance Division (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology) for procuring goods and services. The Portal was launched to offer transparency in the tendering process. “The procurement through GeM eliminates human interface in vendor registration, order placement and payment processing, reducing down the chances of any corruption and human error...

Govt E-Marketplace Portal Is Need Of The Hour, In Best Interest Of Buyers & Sellers: Allahabad High Court

Upasna Agrawal

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