New Delhi: The Centre on Friday moved the Supreme Court challenging the Delhi High Court judgment that set aside the technical evaluation process for outsourcing Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) services at Indian Missions in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra (Australia).
Appearing before a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) Surya Kant, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta mentioned the matter and sought an urgent hearing on the Union government’s plea.
In response, CJI Kant assured that the matter would be listed for hearing on Monday.
In a judgment delivered on July 15, the Delhi High Court had set aside the technical evaluation process for outsourcing CPV services at the four Indian Missions, holding that the assessment of bidders was vitiated by “arbitrariness, irrationality and lack of transparency” in violation of Article 14 of the Constitution.
A Division Bench of Justices Anil Kshetrapal and Shail Jain allowed a batch of petitions filed by E Trav Tech Limited and Verasys Limited, which had challenged their disqualification at the technical bid stage in tenders floated by the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).
The Delhi HC held that while courts ordinarily do not sit in appeal over technical assessments by expert bodies, judicial review is warranted where the decision-making process is arbitrary, opaque and fails to satisfy the constitutional requirements of fairness, transparency and equality.
It observed that although the government had furnished parameter-wise marks following the directions of the Supreme Court, it failed to disclose the basis on which those marks were awarded, leaving the bidders without any means to ascertain why their otherwise compliant proposals were considered inferior to competing bids.
Finding significant inconsistencies in the marking process, the Justice Kshetrapal-led Bench said materially identical proposals and supporting documents had been awarded substantially different scores across different Missions without any recorded reasons.
Setting aside the technical evaluations, the Delhi HC also nullified the award of contracts in favour of the successful private bidders and directed the MEA and the concerned Indian Missions to issue fresh Requests for Proposal (RFPs) within one month and make sincere efforts to complete the tender process expeditiously. However, it permitted existing service providers to continue operating until the fresh tender process is completed to ensure there is no disruption in public services.
(IANS)
