Delhi HC junks Adani arm’s plea to scrap Kolkata airport cargo terminal tender

The Delhi high court has dismissed a plea by Adani Global Air Cargo Solutions, a subsidiary of the Adani Group, seeking annulment of the e-tender for developing a new cargo terminal at the Kolkata airport.

The company claimed technical issues on the Government E-Marketplace (GeM) portal prevented the submission of its bid and requested a fresh tender process.

A division bench comprising Justice Vibhu Bakhru and Justice Girish Kathpalia on 18 March ruled that the bidding process was fair and did not violate Article 14 of the Indian Constitution, which ensures equality before the law.

The court also noted that the Adani arm’s challenge did not meet the “Wednesbury test”, a legal standard used to assess the reasonableness of administrative decisions.

“In the present case, we are unable to accept that the bidding process falls foul of Article 14 of the Constitution of India or is vitiated on the ground of bias,” the court stated.

The order also stated that the Adani entity’s failure to complete the bid submission impacted both the Adani arm and AAI Cargo Logistics and Allied Services Co. Ltd (ACLASCL), a subsidiary of the Airports Authority of India, depriving the latter of a competing bid.

However, acknowledging that Adani Global Air Cargo Solutions made genuine attempts to submit its bid, the court mentioned that the AAI subsidiary responsible for cargo operations is at liberty to consider the Adani bid based on commercial interests.

“While this court finds no reason to interfere with the bidding process, AAICLAS is not prevented from considering that despite Adani’s genuine attempts, it was unable to upload its bid and may take an appropriate decision in its commercial interest,” the court noted.

On 21 August 2024, ACLASCL invited bids for the development of a new cargo terminal at Kolkata’s Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport under a design, build, finance, operate, and transfer (DBFOT) model. The bidding was to be conducted electronically through the GeM portal, with a submission deadline of 7 November at 5pm.

The Adani arm claimed it began the submission process at 4:20pm on the last day and successfully uploaded all necessary documents. However, upon attempting to finalize the submission by clicking the “sign and submit” button, an error message indicated that five documents had not been uploaded despite initial indications of successful uploads.

The company reported attempting to rename and re-upload the files multiple times, but persistent errors prevented final submission before the deadline. Consequently, while the Adani arm managed to submit its technical bid, it could not submit its financial bid.

After missing the bid deadline, the Adani arm emailed AAICLAS at 5:07pm, reporting the technical issue and requesting a 30-minute extension. A second email followed at 6:45pm with more details. On 8 November, the Adani unit again sent its bid details via email.

ACLASCL directed the Adani unit to its procurement team, which stated that no technical issues had been recorded but requested screenshots for verification. The Adani unit provided the screenshots; however, ACLASCL found the evidence insufficient.

Despite further emails with additional screenshots, ACLASCL maintained that they only demonstrated login attempts, not proof of system errors preventing submission.

This prompted the Adani entity to seek legal recourse in the high court.