Path cleared for Adani Group to redevelop Dharavi slums; Bombay HC upholds tender award

Bombay High Court on Friday upheld the tender awarded to Adani Properties Private Limited by the Maharashtra government for the Dharavi slum redevelopment project in Mumbai.

Mumbai: In what comes as a major relief to the Maharashtra government and the Adani Group, the Bombay High Court on Friday cleared the decks for the redevelopment of Dharavi, one of the biggest slum clusters of the world.

The Dharavi Redevelopment Project (DRP) has extensively figured during the 2024 Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha polls as it was the friction point between the ruling BJP-led MahaYuti-NDA and the Congress-led Maha Vikas Aghadi-INDIA opposition bloc.

“There was no arbitrariness, unreasonableness or perversity in the decision of awarding the contract,” a division bench of the Bombay High Court noted and dismissed a petition filed by UAE-based Seclink Technologies Corporation, which has challenged the State’s decision to award the contract to Adani Properties Pvt Ltd.

It may be mentioned, Seclink Technologies had emerged as the highest bidder for the project in 2018, but the tender issued in that year was later scrapped by the State and issued a fresh tender process in 2022 with modified conditions for the redevelopment project.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice D K Upadhyaya and Justice Amit Borkar rejected the contention made by the Seclink Technologies Corp that the tender was "tailor made" to suit a particular firm of the private conglomerate, noting three bidders had participated in the process.

“The petition lacks force and hence stands dismissed,” the bench observed.

“As far as the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner that tender conditions were tailor-made to suit a particular tenderer, we may observe that in response to the fresh tender three bidders had participated out of which two bids were found to be technically qualified. Meaning thereby, at least two bidders fulfilled the technical conditions and therefore, since there were more than two bidders in the field who participated out of which two technically qualified, it cannot be said that the tender conditions were tailor-made so as to suit only a particular bidder,” the bench noted.

The Adani Group had emerged as the highest bidder for the 259-hectare Dharavi Redevelopment Project in the heart of Mumbai and bagged it with its Rs 5,069-crore offer in the 2022 tender process.In the first tender issued in 2018, the petitioner company had emerged as the highest bidder with its Rs 7,200-crore offer. The government had, however, cancelled the 2018 tender and issued a fresh one in 2022 with additional conditions.

(With inputs from agencies)