The Delhi High Court has held that a bidder debarred from participating in tenders cannot be permitted to submit a bid merely because the contract under the tender would commence after the debarment period expires.

The division bench of Justices Tejas Karia and Madhu Jain dismissed a writ petition filed by an infrastructure company, holding that the relevant consideration is whether the debarment order is operative on the date bids are required to be submitted, and not when the contractual period begins.

“The date of commencement of the contractual period under the NIT is not material so long as the Debarment Order continues to operate against the Petitioner at the time when bid under NIT is required to be submitted,” it observed.

Petitioner, engaged in toll collection at National Highway projects, was debarred by the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on August 6, 2025 for one year.

The debarment order is under challenge in a separate writ petition, in which judgment has been reserved.

Meanwhile, NHAI issued a fresh Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) on June 2, 2026 for engagement of a user fee collection agency at the Ghamroj Fee Plaza in Haryana. Although the contract under the tender was to commence after the petitioner's debarment period ended on August 6, 2026, the last date for submission of bids was June 16, 2026, during the currency of the debarment.

Petitioner argued that it should be permitted to participate because the contractual obligations under the fresh tender would arise only after the debarment expired. It contended that excluding it from the bidding process would effectively extend the consequences of the one-year debarment beyond its stipulated tenure.

Opposing the plea, NHAI submitted that the debarment order expressly prohibited the petitioner from participating in any tender during its one-year operation, irrespective of when the contract under the tender would commence.

Accepting NHAI's submissions, the Court further noted that the Single Judge hearing the challenge to the debarment order had not granted any interim injunction staying its operation.

In such circumstances, it held that Petitioner could not be permitted to circumvent the pending proceedings and as such, dismissed its petition.

Appearance: Mr. Ankit Jain, Sr. Adv. with Mr. Vedant Sharma, Mr. Ashish Kumar Pandey, Mr. Apoor Bansal and Mr. Shiva Pandey, Advs. for Petitioner; Mr. Namit Saxena, Adv. for NHAI

Case Title: R.K. Jain Infra Projects Private Limited v. NHAI

Case no.: W.P.(C) 8151/2026

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