Panaji: The Supreme Court has upheld the Bombay high court’s decision rejecting a petition filed by mining firm Agravanshi Pvt Ltd challenging the e-auction process for the Cavrem-Maina mineral block.“We are not inclined to interfere with the impugned judgement/order(s). The special leave petition is, accordingly, dismissed,” the Supreme Court said.Last month, the Bombay high court allowed Goa govt to complete the e-auction process for the Cavrem-Maina mineral block No. XVIII after dismissing the company’s challenge.Agravanshi had claimed it could not place its final bid due to a technical failure on the MSTC e-auction portal on May 12. The company argued that a glitch during the final stage of bidding prevented it from submitting a revised price offer after another bidder quoted 88.8%, resulting in that bidder being declared the successful bidder.The high court observed that the company’s case rested on screenshots and a screen recording from its own computer. It held that while these could indicate a browser timeout or “page unresponsive” error, they did not establish that the MSTC server or portal had failed.The bench noted that such errors could arise from several factors and that a screenshot only proved an error message appeared on the user’s screen, not what caused the error. It added that the material produced by the company was insufficient to conclude that the e-auction portal had suffered any technical failure during the bidding process.
