The Central government has approached the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court’s judgment setting aside 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 comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice V. Mohana by Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Union government.
Accepting the request for urgent listing, the Bench agreed to hear the matter on Monday, July 20.
The appeal arises from a July 15 judgment of the Delhi High Court, which quashed the technical evaluation process and the consequent award of the CPV service contracts, holding that the evaluation was vitiated by arbitrariness, irrationality and lack of transparency.
The verdict was delivered by a Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Shail Jain in a batch of seven petitions filed by travel technology platform eTrav Tech and digital signature certifying authority Verasys.
The petitioners had challenged their disqualification at the technical bid stage, contending that marks were deducted arbitrarily and without any explanation, resulting in their exclusion from the financial bid stage.
They alleged that the evaluation process adopted by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) lacked fairness, transparency and objectivity.
The Union government opposed the petitions, arguing that the bidders were attempting to re-agitate issues that had already been adjudicated in earlier proceedings after failing to secure the contract.
Rejecting the contention, the High Court held that the petitions were founded on a fresh cause of action that arose after the MEA, pursuant to a judicial direction, disclosed the parameter-wise evaluation of the bids.
Upon examining the evaluation records, the High Court found several deficiencies, including the application of undisclosed comparative standards, unexplained deductions under objective parameters, inconsistent marking and the absence of recorded reasons for awarding scores.
The Court observed that the petitioners had been assigned disproportionately low marks without identifying any shortcomings in their technical proposals or providing reasons for the deductions.
Holding that the evaluation process violated the principles of transparency, fairness and natural justice, the High Court ruled that the technical assessment could not withstand scrutiny under Article 14 of the Constitution.
Consequently, the Court set aside the technical evaluation and nullified the award of contracts to the successful private bidders. It further directed the Ministry of External Affairs to initiate a fresh tender process for CPV services at the four Indian Missions within one month.
Pending completion of the fresh tender exercise, the High Court allowed the existing service providers to continue operating at the four missions to ensure that consular, passport and visa services remain uninterrupted.
Aggrieved by the judgment, the Union government has now moved the Supreme Court seeking its intervention. The matter is scheduled to be heard on July 20.
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