In a major ruling, the Bombay High Court has annulled City and Industrial Development Corporation’s (CIDCO) decision to disqualify the Thakur-EVRASCON Joint Venture from bidding on two infrastructure contracts worth Rs 34.77 billion in the Navi Mumbai Airport Influence Notified Area (NAINA). The bench also set aside the contract awarded to the PNC-Aakshya JV worth Rs 19.09 billion and CIDCO’s approval of the financial bid by Ashoka-Aakshya JV for a Rs 15.69 billion project.

Thakur-EVRASCON, a joint venture between Thakur Infraprojects and Azerbaijan-based EVRASCON, challenged the disqualification, alleging unfair treatment. The court found that while CIDCO acted on objections raised against Thakur-EVRASCON, it ignored similar complaints about rival bidders, calling the evaluation process neither fair nor transparent.

CIDCO argued that Thakur-EVRASCON failed to meet several eligibility criteria, including validation of foreign work experience. However, the court ruled that CIDCO had not considered all objections consistently and instructed the authority to re-evaluate financial bids from all eligible bidders before awarding the contracts.