Coal giant rejected one bidder for a 1-day notary gap, let another skip mandatory docs

Your notary stamp is one day late? You're out. Your audited financials are months late? No problem. That was the arithmetic Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL) used when it picked a winner for a 25-year coal mining contract — and the Supreme Court just called it what it was: grossly arbitrary, illegal, and discriminatory.

Two companies. One rulebook. Two different standards. The court asked one question: how did BCCL justify letting one bidder skip mandatory documents while rejecting another for a harmless technicality? The answer: it couldn't.

When the POA arrived one day late

In November 2023, BCCL — a government-owned coal company — invited tenders for a major mining project. Two companies submitted bids: Banshidhar Construction Pvt. Ltd. and Respondent No. 8 (a competing firm). Both uploaded their documents before the deadline. Both wanted the contract.

Banshidhar's bid packet included a Power of Attorney (POA — a legal document authorising someone to sign on behalf of the company). The POA had been signed on 7 November 2023. The bid documents were signed on 13 November 2023. The notary stamp on the POA was dated 14 November 2023 — one day after the bid documents were signed, but still well before the bid submission deadline.

That one-day gap — the fresh ink of the notary stamp, still smelling of solvent, sitting atop a signature that was already a week old — became the entire basis for Banshidhar's rejection.

When the winner's balance sheets arrived months late

Respondent No. 8, meanwhile, had a different problem. It had not submitted its audited balance sheets — mandatory financial documents required under Clause 10 of the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) — at the time of bidding. These documents were supposed to prove the company had the financial muscle to execute a 25-year mining project. The stack of paper simply wasn't there when the bids were opened.

BCCL did not reject Respondent No. 8. Instead, it allowed the company to submit the missing audited balance sheets months later — on 17 April 2024, after the technical bids had already been opened and evaluated. The documents arrived in a thick file, long after the deadline had passed, and were accepted without question.

On 6 May 2024, BCCL's Technical Bid Committee rejected Banshidhar's bid and declared Respondent No. 8 technically qualified. The next day, the financial bids were opened, and Respondent No. 8 was declared the winner. A mining agreement was signed.

The High Court said no — but Banshidhar went higher

Banshidhar rushed to the High Court of Jharkhand at Ranchi, arguing that BCCL had treated two bidders unequally — rejecting one for a technicality while excusing far more serious non-compliance by the other. The courtroom in Ranchi heard the arguments, the files were stacked on the bench, and on 18 July 2024, the High Court dismissed the petition.

Banshidhar then appealed to the Supreme Court.

The first question: was the POA actually invalid?

When the appeal reached the bench of Justice Bela M. Trivedi and Justice Satish Chandra Sharma, the courtroom fell silent as the court asked a simple question: was Banshidhar's Power of Attorney actually invalid?

Under Section 2 of the Power of Attorney Act, 1882, a POA is valid from the date it is executed (signed), not from the date it is notarised. The POA here was signed on 7 November 2023 — six days before the bid documents were signed. The notarisation on 14 November 2023 merely certified that the signature was genuine. The NIT did not say the POA had to be notarised before the bid documents were signed; it only required a notarised POA to be submitted with the bid.

Banshidhar had submitted a notarised POA before the deadline. The POA was valid. The rejection on this ground had no legal basis.

Two weights, two measures — and one Constitution

But the court's deeper concern was the differential treatment. BCCL had applied Clause 10 of the NIT strictly against Banshidhar — rejecting its bid for a one-day notary gap that did not even violate the clause. Against Respondent No. 8, BCCL had applied the same clause so loosely that it allowed the company to skip a mandatory requirement entirely and submit the documents months later.

The Supreme Court held that this differential treatment violated Article 14 of the Constitution (the right to equality). The court cited its own long line of precedents — from Ramana Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India (1979) to Central Coalfields Limited v. SLL-SML (Joint Venture Consortium) (2016) — to reaffirm that a government authority cannot treat similarly situated bidders differently without a rational basis.

The court's own words captured the essence of the violation: the differential treatment was "grossly arbitrary, discriminatory and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution." Those words, read aloud in the courtroom, carried the weight of a fundamental right being enforced against a state-owned entity.

The project size argument that failed

BCCL argued that this was a mega infrastructure project and that an agreement had already been signed with Respondent No. 8. Cancelling it now, they said, would cause delays and losses. The files were thick, the project was large, and the ink on the agreement was already dry.

The Supreme Court rejected that argument. The court held that the size of a project or the fact that an agreement has been executed does not give the government a free pass to act arbitrarily. When a tender decision is found to be grossly illegal and discriminatory, judicial intervention is not only permissible — it is necessary. The bench's voice was firm as it said that no project, however large, could justify a violation of the right to equality.

What the court ordered on 4 October 2024

The Supreme Court set aside BCCL's decision to reject Banshidhar's bid and declare Respondent No. 8 the winner. The mining agreement signed with Respondent No. 8 was also set aside. The court directed BCCL to initiate a fresh tender process for the project and process it in accordance with law.

The appeal was allowed. The order was crisp, leaving no room for ambiguity: the entire process was tainted by arbitrariness and had to be undone.

The rulebook applies both ways

For companies bidding on government contracts, this judgment is a reminder: a tender authority cannot use a technicality to disqualify one bidder while overlooking far more serious non-compliance by another. The right to equality under Article 14 is not suspended during tender evaluations — even for mega projects.

For government authorities, the message is sharper: if you let one bidder skip mandatory requirements, you cannot turn around and reject another for a harmless procedural gap. The court will look at the entire picture — not just the clause you chose to enforce.

THE PLAY: When challenging a tender rejection, always check whether the winning bidder was held to the same standard — if not, you have an Article 14 case.

The court ended where it began: with two bidders, one rulebook, and a government that chose to read it differently for each. The notary stamp on the POA and the stack of late-filed balance sheets sat side by side in the court's mind — and the difference between them told the whole story.