In relief to Adani group, Bombay HC dismisses Dubai firm’s plea challenging Dharavi redevelopment project award

STC had challenged the July 13, 2023 government resolution (GR) of the state housing department to formally award the project to Adani Properties as the lead partner in the project, and the subsequent work order issued on July 17 last year.

In November 2022, Adani Properties won the bid to redevelop nearly 259 hectares of slum area in Central Mumbai. Adani Group was declared the highest bidder after it quoted Rs 5,069 crore and with the Rs 2,800-crore payment to the railways, the bid amount stood at Rs 7,869 crore.

This exceeded the Rs 7,200 crore price bid of Seclink under the old tender, which was cancelled by the Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in October 2020. The government had then said that a new tender would be floated soon.

The project got an impetus in 2016 when the Detailed Project Report was prepared during the tenure of the BJP-Shiv Sena government led by Devendra Fadnavis. In November 2018, the then Fadnavis government approved a new model for the slum’s redevelopment.

Through Senior Advocate Virendra Tulzapurkar, STC claimed it was a successful bidder against the Adani group in January 2019. However, it added that the tender was not awarded following the decision to include railway land in the redevelopment project. It alleged that the government gave away the project to the Adani group “at a loss to the public exchequer”.

Senior Advocate Milind Sathe, appearing for the Maharashtra government and the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA), said the subsequent government helmed by Eknath Shinde issued a new tender in 2022 as a fresh 45-acre plot was found in place of the railway land, and Adani qualified for the bid.

However, the petitioner STC contested the claim and argued that there had been no material change between the earlier and present tenders as the railway land featured in both.

The Maharashtra government, through its housing department, opposed the plea and told the high court that the new tender issued to the Adani Group was “absolutely transparent” and “no undue favour” was given to the highest bidder.

The bench observed that though Seclink was intimated to be the highest bidder, the Committee of Secretaries (CoS) of the state government never decided to declare the petitioner to be the selected bidder.

“Merely because certain expenditure might have been incurred by the petitioner (due to decision of cancelling earlier tender, taken at later stage), in our opinion, will not vitiate the impugned action on the part of the respondents authorities to cancel the earlier tender process,” it noted.

The high court further noted that the three bidders had participated in response to the fresh tender, of which two bids were found technically qualified. “Since there were more than two bidders in the field who participated out of which two technically qualified, it cannot be said that the tender conditions were tailor-made so as to suit only a particular bidder,” it added.

It also noted that Seclink chose not to participate in the fresh tender process and therefore, it cannot be permitted to challenge the terms and conditions of the same after opening the financial bid. “Therefore, submissions that conditions of fresh tender were such that they were embodied only to oust the petitioner from participation and to suit a particular tenderer, in our opinion is misconceived,” it held.