No Judicial Interference in Advanced-Stage Tenders, Rules SC
Table of Contents
- Case Title: M/S. UTKARSH ENTERPRISES & ORS. VERSUS UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
- Case No.: CIVIL APPEAL NO.10772 OF 2026
- Coram: Justice KV Viswanathan and Justice Arun Palli
- Court Observation
Case Title: M/S. UTKARSH ENTERPRISES & ORS. VERSUS UNION OF INDIA & ORS.
Case No.: CIVIL APPEAL NO.10772 OF 2026
Coram: Justice KV Viswanathan and Justice Arun Palli
Court Observation
“Judicial discretion, therefore, must be exercised with extreme circumspection to ensure that fence–sitters, proxies, and unscrupulous litigants who bring a challenge at an advanced stage, are not allowed to disrupt an ongoing process.”
“Tender schedules operate within compressed and purpose – bound timelines. Four months may appear modest when viewed merely as a measure of calendar time. In the life of a tender, however, it may mark the distance between invitation and evaluation, between evaluation and selection, and between an open field and the crystallization of competing interests. Delay in such matters is therefore not assessed by counting days alone. It must be assessed by reference to what has occurred during those days, whose interests have arisen, and what public consequences would follow from unsettling the process at that stage.”
“Those who participated in the tendering process, met every single condition/eligibility criterion, and went through a rigorous evaluation of their technical bids were declared responsive/compliant. Such entities, at the verge of final evaluation of their price bids, too have acquired certain rights and interests. Therefore, to stall the process and afford any judicial indulgence to the Appellants, who approached the High Court at their own convenience, would be unfair. Rather unjust.”
“…the Appellants’ case is bereft of any merit, it is for this belated challenge, portraying a lack of bona fide that we are dissuaded from examining the assailed clauses, rendering any findings on the same, and hence lie on the same page as the High Court.”
No Judicial Interference in Advanced-Stage Tenders, Rules SC
