Delhi High Court today said Jayaswal Neco Industries Ltd (JNIL) is entitled to participate in the auction for a coal block in Chhattisgarh as a technically qualified bidder.
A bench of justices B D Ahmed and Sanjeev Sachdeva passed the order on JNIL's plea challenging the coal ministry's decision rejecting the company's technical bid on the ground that its coal requirement does not meet the extractable reserves of the Gare Palma IV/8 mine.
The government had arrived at the decision by excluding some plants of JNIL's integrated steel unit at Raipur and then computing its coal requirement at 45.76 million tonnes while the extractable reserves of the mine were 45.85 million tonnes (MT), the court noted.
The government had also not added the coal requirement of the unit's pellet plant while arriving at the figure.
JNIL, on the other hand, contended that even by excluding some of its plants, including rolling mill, sinter plant, blast furnace and coal washery, its requirement was 52.15 MT which was more than the extractable reserves of the mine.
Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Sanjay Jain, during the proceedings, said that computation of coal requirement of the pellet plant was not included in that of other bidders and hence was not considered in the case of JNIL.
"Computation was made on basis of coal consumption norms," he said.
The court, however, observed that as per the reasons on record for rejecting the technical bid of JNIL, exclusion of pellet plant
"It is well settled that reasons for rejection have to be those on file and no subsequent reasons can be added. Reasons on file (record) do not exclude the pellet plant. Therefore, we find no reason to permit the respondent (government) at this stage to exclude the plant," it said.
It also said, "in our view the petitioner's technical bid cannot be rejected on the basis of reasons given on record. Petitioner would be entitled to participate as a technically qualified bidder in auction to be held on March 8" and disposed of JNIL's plea.
The court, meanwhile, listed the petitions of Bhushan Power and Steel Ltd, Utkal Coal Ltd and Monnet Ispat and Energy Ltd for hearing on March 13.
