The Supreme Court on Wednesday admitted a special leave petition by Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Energy Ltd challenging disqualification from the bidding process for the sea link expressway between Mumbai and Navi Mumbai.
The only company left in the race for the Rs 2,600-crore (Rs 26 billion) project is Mukesh Ambani-controlled Sea King Infrastructure Ltd as other bidders have withdrawn from the race. The Maharashtra
State Road Development Corporation is the nodal agency for implementing the 22.5-km project.
Earlier, the Bombay High Court had ordered that the bids received from any party would not be opened. Reliance Energy Ltd and Hyundai Engineering & Construction Company Ltd appealed to the Supreme Court in June against the high court order.
The consortium led by REL said the corporation's decision to disqualify it the bidding process on the ground that its partner Hyundai Engineering and Construction Company did not meet the Rs 200-crore (Rs 2 billion) net-worth norm was wrong. REL said it alone was capable of meeting the net-worth criterion for the entire consortium.
The corporation had invited bids for building a two-way, four-lane highway connecting Sewree in South Mumbai to Nhava in Navi Mumbai over sea. The estimated construction time for the turnkey project, before the Ambani brothers fell out over this, was two years.
The main legal contest is over the eligibility criteria. According to the original bid announcement, the lead member of a consortium should have an average annual turnover of at least Rs 1,000 crore (Rs 10 billion) from its construction business during the last three financial years.
In the case of a consortium, the member should have constructed at least one bridge project (road or rail) over a river or a creek or over the sea costing not less than Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) during the past eight years in India.
