In Brief
A pharmaceutical company challenged the rejection of its tender bid for insecticide nets because it had not submitted a Central Insecticide Board registration certificate at the time of bid opening, even though the Board had approved provisional registration earlier. The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal, holding that a regulatory decision does not amount to actual registration unless formally implemented and documented. The amended tender requirement for submission of the certificate at bid time was a clarificatory, essential condition applicable to all bidders equally and not arbitrary. Since the actual certificate was issued after the bid deadline, the company's bid was properly rejected as non-responsive, and the decision was in the public interest.
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