The Supreme Court has dismissed Mumbai-based Glodyne Technoserve Ltd's plea against Madhya Pradesh government that awarded the tender for computerisation of Public Distribution System and Biometric enrolment of UID Aadhar beneficiaries to HCL Construction Ltd.

A bench of Justice Altamas Kabir and Justice Cyriac Joseph rejected Glodyne's plea that its bid was lower than that of HCL and that the state had lost Rs 200 crore in awarding the contract to latter.

Glodyne, a public listed company, was disqualified from participating in the tender, as it had failed to submit a copy of the required ISO 9001:2000 certificate of the current year (2010).

The company claimed that it, inadvertently, submitted the ISO 9001:2000 certificate of the year 2009, instead of the year 2010.

Senior counsel Harish Salve appearing for GTL had argued that on the submission date, it had a valid and active ISO 9001:2000 certification, but submitted an expired certification of previous year due to an inadvertent error.

He had argued that according to tender conditions it was not absolutely necessary for the valid ISO 9001:2000 certification to be filed along with the bid documents and that it could be filed before the agreement was ultimately signed.

Salve had further argued that GTL's offer was about Rs 200 crores less than the second-lowest tenderer to whom the contract was ultimately given, thus, causing a huge loss to the state government.

Attorney General G E Vahanvati appearing for the state government, however, maintained that the company was in breach of the mandatory condition of filing certain documents, which were required to be submitted.

The apex court held that not submitting the required document may have occurred due to inadvertent mistake, but it is for the bids accepting authority to decide if it should accept such explanation.