Kochi: The Kerala High Court on Thursday upheld the government decision to award the contract for the construction of the Vizhinjan deepwater seaport and international transhipment container terminal to Lanco Kondapalli Power Private Ltd., Hyderabad.

Justice Thottathil B. Radhakrishnan while dismissing a petition by Zoom Developers said the decision of the government and the Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd., a sponsor company, was not vitiated.

The petition sought to declare as illegal the action of the State government in treating the proposal submitted by the petitioner as “non-responsive.”

Zoom Developers was disqualified on the main ground that it had changed a consortium partner after the submission of the consortium agreement. The other reason for disqualifying it at the pre-qualification stage was that the company had not stated that it would be “jointly and severally liable” at every stage of the project.

The court said the contention that in the absence of the term “liability” in the agreement, the government and the sponsoring company could not be compelled to treat that the proposal by Zoom Developers as non-responsive was sustained. They could not be held to have acted against the public interest or against the terms of the Request for the Proposal (RFP).

Source: The Hindu