WILL OFFSHORE INDUSTRIAL SAFETY SERVICES ORGANIZATION AND ANRversusUNION OF INDIA THR. MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM AND NATURAL GAS REP. THR. THE OFFICE AND 2 ORS

                                           WP-699-2026-JT.DOC
2026:BHC-GOA:1974-DB




                Suchitra



                             IN THE HIGH COURT OF BOMBAY AT GOA

                                    WRIT PETITION NO.699/2026


                 1. WILL OFFSHORE INDUSTRIAL
                 SAFETY SERVICES ORGANIZATION, a
                 Micro Enterprise, having address at No.C
                 39, B & C, B R Steel Rd, MIDC Industrial
                 Area, Pawne, Behind GAMI,
                 Industrial Park Navi
                 Mumbai, Maharashtra 400705

                 2. GOVINDAN M., Aged 57 years
                 Indian inhabitant,
                 Director of the Petitioner,
                 having address at No.C
                 39, B & C, B R Steel Rd
                 MIDC Industrial Area, Pawne,
                 Behind GAMI, Industrial Park
                 Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra 400705.                 … PETITIONERS

                           Versus

                 1. UNION OF INDIA THROUGH
                 MINISTRY OF PETROLEUM AND
                 NATURAL GAS, represented through the
                 oice of Government Pleader,
                 High Court, Goa.

                 2. OIL AND NATURAL GAS
                 CORPORATION LIMITED,
                 a Company incorporated under the
                 Companies Act, 1956 having their
                 registered oice at Oil and Natural Gas
                 Corporation limited, Plot No. 5A 5B
                 Nelson Mandela Road, Vasant Kunj,
                 New Delhi, 110070, Having oice at
                 ONGC IPSHEM, Betul, P.O. Velim,
                 South Goa-403723.

                 3. SURAKSHA MARINE PETROSKILLS
                 LTD. PVT. A/1308, Oberoi Splendor,
                 Jogeshwari Vikhroli Link Road,
                 Opposite Majas Bus Depot,
                 Jogeshwari East, Mumbai 400060.                   … RESPONDENTS


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 Mr Shivan Desai and Ms Riya Amonkar, Advocates for the
 Petitioners.

 Mr S. Karpe, Central Government Standing Counsel with Ms
 Samiksha Vaigankar, Advocate for Respondent No.1.

 Mr John A. Lobo, Advocate for Respondent No.2.

 Mr S. S. Kantak, Senior Advocate with Ms Neha Kholkar and Ms
 Saicha Dessai, Advocates for Respondent No.3.


                CORAM:               VALMIKI MENEZES &
                                     AMIT S. JAMSANDEKAR, JJ.

                DATED:               24th SEPTEMBER 2026

 JUDGMENT : (Per Valmiki Menezes, J.)


1.    his Writ Petition under Article 226 of the Constitution of
India seeks to strike down the process of Bid-bearing No.
GEM/2025/B/6423740 dated 11.07.2025 for Services-Hiring of
O & M and training of Sea Survival Center, at ATI ONGC, Goa
issued by the Respondent No.2, ONGC as arbitrary and
unreasonable; since the bids in the tender, both, technical and
inancial were subsequently opened and the work order dated
11.08.2025 was issued in favour of Respondent No.3, the work
order is also challenged.

2.    According to the averments made in the Petition, the Bid
Document, which is dated 11.07.2025 was vague and did not
disclose the clarity of the training load (number of trainees per
batch) that the potential bidders were required to bid for; the
Petitioner raises a grievance that it had raised these objections by
sending emails to the Respondent No.2 and to the Independent

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External Monitor (IEM), without any response, prior to the
submission of bids or prior to the opening of the Technical Bid.
According to the Petitioner, in the absence of the details of the
training load, the bids would be speculated and there would be
no fairness, transparency or reasonableness in the bidding process.

3.    An aidavit in reply came to be iled by the Respondent
No.2 – ONGC which denies the claim of the Petitioner.
According to the aidavit, the details of the training load were
suiciently stated, and prior to the Bid Document being
published, it is the case of the ONGC that a Letter of Expression
of Interest (EOI) was issued to all providers of such services,
including the Petitioner and the Respondent No.3 who attended
the pre-bid meeting and conference where clariications for their
doubts were given. he aidavit states that in addition, aspiring
bidders could email their queries, and during this process, the
Petitioner raised none of the grievances now sought to be taken as
grounds in the Petition.

4.    he aidavit of the ONGC further objects to the admission
of this Petition, on the grounds that there is a suppression of facts
and at no point of time was any query raised by the Petitioner as
to the training load, either prior to the bidding process
commencing nor during the interaction at the pre-bid stage. he
aidavit further states that the queries of the Petitioner were dealt
with by the IEM in its opinion dated 08.08.2025, wherein clauses
5.1 and 5.2 had speciically dealt with the query of training load
and the criterion were all in line with OPITO Norms, which were
known to the Petitioner.
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5.    Respondent No.3, the successful tenderer has iled an
aidavit in reply wherein, it states that there were three successful
bidders, after Technical and Financial Bids were opened. he
aidavit     reproduces   the    bids   Respondent No.2 –
                                        –
Rs.17,84,16,000/-, Little Silver – Rs.36,10,80,000/- and he
Petitioner – Rs.50,77,77,777/-. he objections to the Petition
raised by the Respondent No.3 are the following:

      (a)    he Petitioner did not raise any queries as to
      requirement of trainees, prior to the tender process;

      (b)    he Petitioner participated in the tender process
      without demur and now cannot challenge the tender on the
      grounds of vagueness or lack of details.

      (c)    hat the tenders were invited from OPITO
      Accredited Service Providers of which the three short-listed,
      technically   qualiied     tenderers       which   include   the
      Respondent No.3 and the Petitioner were amongst; the
      Petitioner is therefore expected to know all the
      requirements of diferent training modules, being an
      OPITO Accredited Service Provider.

6.    he following submissions were made by Mr Shivan Desai
on behalf of the Petitioners:

      (a)    hat the Bid Document and the bidding process did
      not disclose the training load and therefore, any potential
      bidder could not submit a bid due to lack of clarity in the
      conditions stipulated in the tender document. he entire
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       process therefore was devoid of fairness, transparency and
       reasonableness. he nature of the services to be provided
       being highly technical, the document ought to have given
       the details of the training load for each module.
       Consequently, the entire tender process was vitiated.

       (b)    hat despite raising speciic queries with the
       Respondent No.2 as to what was the training load against
       which the bids were to be iled, there was no details
       provided by the Respondent No.2 which proceeded to open
       the Technical and the Financial Bids. he learned counsel
       has taken us through the tender document, the
       correspondence on record and the scope of work to contend
       that at no point of time was the Respondents forthcoming
       with the training load for each course, to enable the
       Petitioner to bid for the contract with absolute clarity.
       Reliance was placed by the Petitioner on the following case
       law:

       (i) Haryana State Industrial & Infrastructure Development
       Corporation Ltd. v/s Ashish Jain & Ors1.
       (ii) MP Power Management Co. Ltd, Jabalpur v/s Sky
       Power Southeast Solar India Pvt. Ltd.2.
       (iii) Ulex Ltd. v/s Government of Tamil Nadu3.
       (iv) Food Corporation of Inida v/s M/s Kamdhenu Cattle
       Feed Industries4.

1 (2023) SCC OnLine SC 995
2 (2023) 2 SCC 703
3 (2021) SCC OnLine SC 738
4 (1993) 1 SCC 71
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      (v)    Jagdish Mandal v/s State of Orissa5.
      (vi) Silppi Constructions Contractors v/s Union of India6.
      (vii) Union of India v/s International Trading Co.7
      (viii) Shinde Developers Private Limited v/s Mormugao
      Port Authority8.

7.    Mr Subodh Kantak, learned Senior Advocate for the
Respondent No.3 has advanced the following submissions:

      (a)    He has taken us through the various communications
      of the Petitioner addressed to the Respondent No.2 and to
      the IEM prior to iling its bid, to submit that none of these
      raised a query as to the training load under the tender
      document. He has also taken us to the opinion of the IEM
      dated 08.08.2025 with its indings at paragraphs 5.2 and
      5.6 of the reply, to contend that all OPITO certiied service
      providers, including the Petitioner are aware of the
      technical manuals and speciications of each OPITO
      Training Module, and therefore cannot raise objections as
      to training load not speciied in the tender document. he
      learned counsel argues that there is no statement made in
      the Petition that in the absence of training load being
      speciied, the Petitioner’s bid was speculative.




5 (2007) 14 SCC 517
6 (2020) 16 SCC 489
7 (2003) 5 SCC 437
8 2023 SCC OnLine Bom 1267
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        (b)     It was further argued that the Petition does not allege
        any malaides on the part of Respondent No.2 in the tender
        process and considering that the inancial bids were opened
        on 09.08.2025 and the Respondent No.3 was issued a
        Work Order on the same date, a year having passed since
        then, it would serve no public interest to entertain the
        Petition. Reliance was placed by the Respondent No.3 on
        the following case law:

        (i) Michigan Rubber (India) Limited v/s State of
        Karnataka and Others9.
        (ii) Afcons Infrastructure Limited v/s Nagpur Metro Rail
        Corporation Limited and Another10.
        (iii) National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited v/s
        Montecario Limited and Another11.

8.      Mr John Lobo, learned counsel for Respondent No.2 –
ONGC, apart from reiterating the contentions raised by the
learned counsel for Respondent No.3 has submitted, based on the
aidavit of the Respondent No.2 that the Petition sufers from
suppression of material facts, in that, the Petitioner has nowhere
disclosed the fact that it has attended the pre-bid meetings at the
stage of Expression of Interest (EOI) nor has it raised at these
meetings or prior to submitting its bid, any objection as to the
vagueness of the tender document on the ground that it did not
specify the training load; it was further contended that prior to


9 (2012) 8 SCC 216
10 (2016) 16 SCC 818
11 (2002) 6 SCC 401
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the bids being opened, the Petitioner has submitted an
undertaking dated 02.08.2025 after attending the post-bid
conference on 01.08.2025 conirming their willingness to
participate in the process of opening of the Financial Bids. he
Petitioner has further withdrawn its protest under which it made
its bids, vide communication of 06.08.2025, and has participated
in the opening of the Financial Bids, and consequently cannot
now raise grounds which were stated in its protest letter of
28.07.2025.


9.    Rule. Rule is made returnable forthwith at the request of
and with the consent of the learned counsel for the parties.

10.   On considering the rival submissions, and the pleadings of
the parties, we reject the Petition for the following reasons.

      he Petitioner has not alleged any malaides in the Petition,
or contended that the tender process was tailor made and with
the intention to favour one of the parties or the successful bidder.
In the present case, there were only three bidders, of which the
Petitioner’s bid was the highest. It is settled law that the words
used in the tender document and the requirements of the tender
are to be left to the party who calls for the bids. Writ Courts are
not permitted to examine the document minutely and to impute
any vagueness or arbitrariness in the document or the tender
process, as these are to be left to the party calling for bids. hat
party would be the best judge of the entire process and the draft
of the tender document. In Afcons Infrastructure Limited (supra)



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the Supreme Court has laid down this very principle, in the
following words :

      “13. In other words, a mere disagreement with the
      decision-making process or the decision of the
      administrative authority is no reason for a constitutional
      court to interfere. he threshold of mala ides, intention to
      favour, someone or arbitrariness, irrationality or perversity
      must be met before the constitutional court interferes with
      the decision-making process or the decision.

      14. We must reiterate the words of caution that this
      Court has stated right from the time when Ramana
      Dayaram Shetty v. International Airport Authority of India
      was decided almost 40 years ago, namely, that the words
      used in the tender documents cannot be ignored or treated
      as redundant or superluous they must be given meaning
      and their necessary signiicance. In this context, the use of
      the word "metro) in Clause 4.2(a) of Section III of the bid
      documents-and its connotation in ordinary parlance cannot
      be overlooked.

      15. We may add that the owner or the employer of a
      project, having authored the tender documents, is the best
      person to understand and appreciate its requirements and
      interpret its documents. he constitutional courts must
      defer to this understanding and appreciation of the tender
      documents, unless there is mala ide or perversity in the
      understanding or appreciation or in the application of the
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      terms of the tender conditions. It is possible that the owner
      or employer of a project may give an interpretation to the
      tender documents that is hot acceptable to the
      constitutional courts but that by itself is not a reason for
      interfering with the interpretation given.

      16. In the present appeals, although there does not appear
      to be any ambiguity or doubt about the interpretation
      given by NMRCL to the tender conditions, we are of the
      view that even if there was such an ambiguity or doubt, the
      High Court ought to have refrained from giving its own
      interpretation unless it had come to a clear conclusion that
      the interpretation given by NMRCL was perverse or mala
      ide or intended to favour one of the bidders. his was
      certainly not the case either before the High Court or
      before this Court.”

11.   Following Afcons Infrastructure Limited (supra), a later
decision of the Supreme Court in National High Speed Rail
Corporation (supra), the scope of judicial review and the
considerations by a Writ Court before interfering in a contract
matter in exercise of powers of judicial review have been
considered in the following terms:

      “29. hus, from the aforesaid decisions, it can be seen that a
      court before interfering in a contract matter in exercise of
      powers of judicial review should b pose to itself the
      following questions:


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            (i) Whether the process adopted or decision made by
            the authority is mala ide or intended to favour
            someone or whether the process adopted or decision
            made is so arbitrary and irrational that the court can
            say: "the decision is such that no responsible
            authority acting reasonably and in accordance with
            relevant law could have reached"? And

            (ii) Whether the public interest is afected?

      If the answers to the above questions are in the negative,
      then there should be no interference under Article 226.”

      30. Applying the law laid down by this Court in the
      aforesaid decisions to the facts of the case on hand and
      when a conscious decision was taken by ICC/JICA holding
      the bid submitted by the original writ petitioner as non-
      responsive/non-compliant to the technical requirements of
      the bidding documents and sufering from material
      deviation, we are of the opinion that the High Court has
      erred in interfering with the tender process and interfering
      with the decision of JICC/JICA rejecting the bid submitted
      by the original writ petitioner at technical stage.”

12.   he aforementioned Judgment was also based on an earlier
decision of the Supreme Court in Michigan Rubber (India) Ltd.
(supra) where the Supreme Court was considering the scope of
judicial review under Article 226 of the Constitution of India of


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contracts entered into by the State pursuant to a tender process.
Following are the observations by the Supreme Court therein:

      “23. From the above decisions, the following principles
      emerge:


            (a) he basic requirement of Article 14 is fairness in
            action by the State, and non-arbitrariness in essence
            and substance is the heartbeat of fair play. hese
            actions are amenable to the judicial review only to the
            extent that the State must act validly for a discernible
            reason and not whimsically for any ulterior purpose.
            If the State acts within the bounds of reasonableness,
            it would be legitimate to take into consideration the
            national priorities.

            (b) Fixation of a value of the tender is entirely within
            the purview of the executive and the courts hardly
            have any role to play in this process except for
            striking down such action of the executive as is
            proved to be arbitrary or unreasonable If the
            Government acts in conformity with certain healthy
            standards and norms such as awarding of contracts by
            inviting tenders, in those circumstances, the
            interference by courts is very limited,

            (c) In the matter of formulating conditions of a
            tender document and awarding a contract. greater

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      latitude is required to be conceded to the State
      authorities unless the action of the tendering
      authority is found to be malicious and a misuse of its
      statutory powers, interference by courts is not
      warranted;

      (d) Certain preconditions or qualiications for tenders
      have to be laid down to ensure that the contractor has
      the capacity and the resources to successfully execute
      the work and

      (e) If the State or its instrumentalities act reasonably
      fairly and in public interest in awarding contract,
      here again, interference by court is very restrictive
      since no person can claim a fundamental right to
      carry on business with the Government.

24. herefore, a court before interfering in tender or
contractual matters, in exercise of power of judicial review,
should pose to itself the following questions:

      (i) Whether the process adopted or decision made by
      the authority is mala ide or intended to favour
      someone; or whether the process adopted or decision
      made is so arbitrary and irrational that the court can
      say: "the decision is such that no responsible
      authority acting reasonably and in accordance with
      relevant law could have reached and


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             (ii) Whether the public interest is afected?
      If the answers to the above questions are in the negative,
      then there should be no interference under Article 226.”

13.   Applying the ratio and principles laid down in the
aforementioned judgments to the facts of the present case, we
ind no cause for interference with the decision of the ONGC to
award the contract to Respondent No.3, since we ind neither
arbitrariness in the tender process nor the tender document to
sufer from such vagueness so as to vitiate the entire process. We
have concised the documents which are part of the record, to
come to the above conclusions, hereinbelow:

      DATE                             EVENT

  19.05.2025     Respondent No.2 – ONGC calls for the vendor
                 interaction and site visit, and Expression Of Interest
                 (EOI) to prospective bidders.              Petitioner,
                 Respondent No.3 and other prospective bidders
                 attend the meeting on 20.05.2025. here is no
                 objections raised or query placed on record of the
                 Petitioner as to the training load expected for each
                 course. Note must be taken of the fact that from
                 the record it transpires that the Petitioner is an
                 OPITO certiied service provider with years of
                 experience, as claimed by it and would be expected
                 to have a clear understanding of the services to be
                 provided under the tender.

  11.07.2025     Respondent No.2 loats the bid for services-Hiring
                 of O & M and training of Sea Survival Center, at
                 ATI ONGC, Goa for a period of three years. No
                 queries as to the training load were raised by the
                 Petitioner. he Petitioner’s letters dated 21.07.2025,
                 22.07.2025 and 25.07.2025 do not raise any

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                speciic query as to training load or that the tender
                document sufers from vagueness as it does not
                specify the training load for each of the training
                modals.

  28.07.2025    he Petitioner submits its bid under protest. Even in
                the protest letter the grounds raised in this Petition
                are not speciically raised and are extremely vague.

  28.07.2025    Technical Bid is opened and the Petitioner qualiies
                for the same.

  01.08.2025    he Petitioner attends a pre-inancial bid meeting
                with the Respondent No.3 after which it issues a
                letter dated 02.08.2025 in the form of an
                undertaking, that it has fully understood all queries
                of Respondent No.2.

  06.08.2025    he Petitioner sends a communication to
                Respondent No.2 wherein it records that it would
                attend the meeting of Respondent No.2 to be held
                on 06.08.2025 and further records that it has
                withdrawn its protest. On the giving of the
                undertaking and withdrawal of protest, respondent
                No.2 proceeds to consider the Petitioner’s bid.

  09.08.2025    he price bids were opened and the Respondent
                No.3 was declared the lowest tenderer.



14.   Considering the above facts, what is clear is that the
Petitioner had the option of continuing its protest and
challenging the tender document, as has been done in the
Petition, even prior to opening of the inancial bids. Instead, the
Petitioner chose to wait for it to be declared as technically
qualiied, when technical bids were opened on 28.07.2025, and

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thereafter give an undertaking and withdraw its protest on
06.08.2025 before the inancial bids were opened. he Petitioner
has therefore clearly chosen to waive its protest and participate in
the inancial bid, when its cause of action had arisen to press for
its grounds in challenge to the tender document itself, as far back
as 28.07.2025. On this conduct alone, it is obvious that the
Petition has been iled as an afterthought, only after the
Petitioner’s bid had been knocked out as the highest amongst the
three bidders. his conduct by itself disentitles the Petitioner
from reliefs under Article 226 of the Constitution of India.

15.   It is also not the Petitioner’s case in the Petition that the
tender document was so vague and devoid of particulars as to the
training load, that would render the Petitioner’s bid to be
speculative. he Petition also does not allege any malaides or
facts, if accepted by the Court that would lead to a conclusion,
that the entire tender process was designed to favour any one
bidder. We must also consider the fact that the Work Order has
been awarded to the Respondent No.3 on 09.08.2025, and since
then Respondent No.3 has been providing services of training
under the tender document for more than a year of out of the
three year contract. In the background of all these facts, we are
clearly of the opinion that absolutely no public interest would be
served, even if we had concluded that there was arbitrariness in
the tender process, at this stage, after one year of the Work Order
having been performed, to interfere in Writ jurisdiction of this
Court.



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                                  16.   In these background facts therefore, we reject this Petition
                                  at the threshold.     Rule is therefore discharged.         In the
                                  circumstances and facts stated above, this would be a it case to
                                  impose costs on the Petitioner which are quantiied at
                                  Rs.50,000/-.   he Petitioner shall deposit these costs to the
                                  account of the Goa High Court Bar Association in the name of
                                  “Legal Training/Education Fund”, within a period of two weeks
                                  from today.

                                  17.   he Writ Petition is disposed of in the above terms.


                                   AMIT S. JAMSANDEKAR, J.              VALMIKI MENEZES, J.




Signed by: SUCHITRA NANDAN                                      Page 17 of 17
SINGBAL                                                    24th September 2026
Designation: Personal Assistant
Date: 05/10/2026 10:41:30