A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice M.S. Karnik rejected the plea as non-meritorious and directed the companies to pay ₹5 lakh to JNPA. Since Adani Ports has already submitted Rs 4.25 lakh with the tender to JNPA, it will deposit the remaining ₹75, 000.
The Bench also refused Adani Ports’s request to maintain status quo and not open bids till it sought relief before the Supreme Court.
As per the plea the said bidding process consisted of two stages, the first stage was a global invitation of ‘Request for Qualification’ (RFQ) seeking application from interested parties. The second stage was where the applicants had to send their ‘Request for Proposal.’ Adani ports had contended that after submitting its RFQ, the Board sought clarifications from them and also raised a query about the termination of concession agreement between Visakhapatnam Port Trust and Adani Vizag coal.
