Must an essential eligibility condition in a tender notice be enforced rigidly?

Paragraph 24It is well-settled in law that requirements in a tender notice can be classified into the following two categories: (i) those which lay down the essential condition of eligibility; (ii) the other which are merely ancillary or subsidiary to the main object sought to be achieved by the condition. In the first case, the authorities issuing the tender may be required to enforce the condition rigidly whereas in other cases, it may be open to the authority to deviate from it and not to insist upon strict literal compliance of the condition[^12]. It is an equally established legal proposition that any non-conformity with or relaxation in the prescribed standard allowed in case of any tenderer, if not resulting in substantial prejudice or injustice to any of the parties or to public interest in general would not be bad[^13]. It is equally well-settled in law that where upon due consideration of the tender document submitted by all the tenderers on their own merits, if it is ultimately found that successful bidders had in fact substantially complied with the purport and object for which the essential conditions were laid down, the same may not ordinarily be interfered with[^14]. I. THE NATURE OF THE EXPERIENCE REQUIRED UNDER CLAUSE 9: A SPECIALISED ONE?

Paragraph 35We find no merit in the contention that the enlistment instructions are merely directory. The Committee itself proceeded on the footing that the experience criterion was mandatory, it did not accept the bid of any bidder that failed to furnish the certificate at all; it merely erred in its assessment of whether the particular certificate furnished by the H[^1] Bidder satisfied that mandatory requirement. A condition cannot be mandatory in the abstract and directory only in its application to a favoured bidder.