New Delhi: The Central government has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court’s recent judgment that quashed the award of tenders for outsourcing Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) services at Indian Missions in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra.
The matter was mentioned on Friday before a bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V. Mohana. Solicitor General Tushar Mehta sought an urgent hearing, following which the Court agreed to list the case for hearing on July 20.
The appeal comes days after the Delhi High Court set aside the technical evaluation process and the consequent award of the contracts, holding that the tender process suffered from arbitrariness, irrationality and a lack of transparency.
The High Court’s July 15 judgment was delivered by a division bench of Justices Anil Kshetarpal and Shail Jain on a batch of petitions filed by eTrav Tech and Verasys, two bidders that were disqualified during the technical evaluation stage.
The petitioners argued that marks were deducted arbitrarily without any explanation, preventing them from qualifying for the financial bid. They challenged the Ministry of External Affairs’ evaluation process as unfair and lacking transparency.
Rejecting the Centre’s contention that the petitions merely re-agitated previously settled issues, the High Court held that a fresh cause of action had arisen after the Ministry disclosed parameter-wise evaluation details pursuant to an earlier court direction.
The High Court observed that the evaluation process relied on undisclosed comparative standards, unexplained deductions, inconsistent marking and the absence of recorded reasons. It concluded that the technical assessment violated the principles of fairness under Article 14 of the Constitution.
Accordingly, the High Court quashed the technical evaluation and the contracts awarded to successful bidders, while directing the Centre to issue fresh tenders for CPV services at the four Indian Missions within one month. It, however, permitted the existing service providers to continue operations until a fresh tender process is completed.
The Union government has now challenged that verdict before the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the High Court’s order.