L & T Hydrocarbon Engineering Ltd. v. Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. & Anr.
(2018) 249 DLT 382 (DB)
In the High Court of Delhi at New Delhi
W.P.(C) 1429/2018 & CM APPL. 5900/2018 & 7205/2018
Before Justice Hima Kohli and Justice Pratibha Rani
Decided on May 25, 2018

Relevancy of the case: Submission of bid and timeline in the e-tendering process

Statutes & Provisions Involved

• The Information Technology Act, 2000 (Section 13)
• The General Clauses Act, 1897 (Section 27)
• The Indian Contract Act, 1872 (Section 4)

Relevant Facts of the Case

• The respondent, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd. floated a tender under the international competitive bidding format.
• The tendering process consisted of a two-bid system requiring the techno-commercial bid to be submitted by the bidder which was to be submitted on the respondent’s online site and the submission process was also mentioned by the respondent.
• The deadline of the submission of the bid was on 05.2.2018 at 14:00:00 hrs. The last document as a part of the bid submitted by the petitioner was digitally signed on 05.2.2018 at 13:58:43 hours.
• The aforementioned bid, according to the step-by-step bidding process mentioned in the respondent’s website, was ought to be “Saved” inside the server of the respondent, immediately after which the petitioner hit the “Submit button” and the representative of the petitioner had hit the “Send Button” before the clock hit 14:00 hours.
• When the respondent opened the bids at approximately 8.00 PM on 05.2.2018, the representative of the Petitioner was told to leave the place where the tender opening took place on the basis that he’s never submitted a legitimate bid within the stated time frame. This move by the respondent to disqualify the petitioner has prompted them to file the current petition.

Opinion of the Bench

• As specified in Section 13 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, as soon as the data is transferred by the petitioner to the respondent and the petitioner loses control over the data, a parallel is drawn with Section 27 of the General Clauses Act or Section 4 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872, which specifies that when a proposer puts a proposal in the course of transmission to the person whom it should reach, it is completed as against the proposer. Accordingly, the bid submitted by the petitioner is complete as against the petitioner as the petitioner pressed the submit button before the deadline. Hence, he shouldn’t be concerned about the delay in the generation of acknowledgement within the respondent’s computer.
• It is sufficient to acknowledge that two perceptible activities were recorded in the area demarcated for the petitioner on the respondent’s server which strongly indicates that the petitioner had managed to beat the clock and submitted his techno-commercial offer just before the deadline for submission.

Final Decision

• The petition was allowed and the parties were ordered to bear their own costs.
• It was held that the petitioner submitted the bid within the specified time frame and the petitioner can participate in the bidding process along with the other bidders.

This case summary has been prepared by Akshara Kamath, an undergraduate student at Symbiosis Law School, Hyderabad, during her internship with The Cyber Blog India in June/July 2020.