Delhi High Court Quashes MEA's Consular, Passport And Visa Service Tenders For Four Indian Missions

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday set aside the Ministry of External Affairs' (MEA) tender process for outsourcing Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) services at Indian Missions in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra (Australia). [2026 LiveLaw (Del) 656]

A division bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Shail Jain held that the technical evaluation of bidders was arbitrary, opaque and violative of the principles of fairness and transparency.

The Court allowed a batch of petitions filed by E Trav Tech Limited and Verasys Limited, challenging their disqualification at the technical bid stage after failing to secure the minimum qualifying score of 70 marks.

The petitioners argued that although they were later furnished parameter-wise marks pursuant to earlier litigation, the authorities failed to disclose the reasons or basis for awarding those marks.

They alleged a systemic pattern of arbitrariness, application of undisclosed comparative benchmarks, unexplained deductions and inconsistent marking of identical proposals across different missions.

Allowing the pleas, the Court rejected the Union Government's preliminary objection that the pleas were barred by res judicata.

It held that the petitions arose from a fresh cause of action flowing from the disclosure of the parameter-wise evaluation pursuant to judicial orders and thus, they were maintainable.

Further, the Court observed that the Petitioners pointed out instances where identical proposals and supporting documents were awarded substantially different marks across different Missions, despite there being no apparent distinction in the material placed before the respective Technical Evaluation Committees.

“In the considered view of this Court, the parameter-wise marks awarded to the Petitioners are vitiated by arbitrariness, irrationality and lack of transparency, rendering the impugned technical evaluations unsustainable under Article 14 of the Constitution,” the Court said.

Setting aside the technical evaluation processes, the Court also nullified the award of tender in favour of the private Respondents— successful bidders.

It directed the MEA to issue fresh Requests for Proposal (RFPs) within one month across all four Missions.

“Meanwhile, the existing incumbents may be permitted to continue providing the aforesaid services across all four Missions in order to ensure that there is no disruption in the provision of public services or inconvenience to the public, until the fresh tender process is concluded and the successful (L-1) bidders are selected in accordance with law,” the Bench ordered.

Title: E TRAV TECH LIMITED v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS and other connected matters

Citation: 2026 LiveLaw (Del) 656

Click here to read order