In Brief
Afcons Infrastructure challenged a High Court decision upholding the eligibility of a Chinese-Indian joint venture (GYT-TPL JV) to bid for a Nagpur Metro viaduct contract. The joint venture claimed experience from an inter-city railway project in China, but the project owner (NMRCL) disqualified the bid as not meeting the 'metro civil construction work' requirement. The Supreme Court held that the statutory definition of 'metro railway' refers to intra-city mass rapid transit systems, qualitatively distinct from inter-city railways. Reaffirming that courts should not interfere with tender decisions unless they are mala fide or perverse, the Court set aside the High Court judgment and restored NMRCL's disqualification decision. The Court also noted that competing bidders should be made parties to such disputes.
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