“No State Of War With Neigbouring Bangladesh, Cannot Deviate From Fair Tender Process”: Tripura HC Slams State For Overlooking Lowest Bidder

The Tripura High Court recently set aside the award of a government contract to a second-lowest bidder and held that the rejection of the lowest bidder was arbitrary, unreasonable, and violative of Article 14 of the Constitution.

The Court remarked that there was no situation of war or immediate emergency warranting deviation from a fair tender process.

A Division Bench of Chief Justice M.S. Ramachandra Rao and Justice Biswajit Palit remarked that: “It is not as if there was a state of war existing between India and Bangladesh. Obviously the so called situation in Bangladesh, had no relevance to the decision taken with regard to the award of the subject tender to respondent no.6, and is being used to draw wool over the eyes of the Court and somehow justify the arbitrary and illegal decision…”

Background:

The dispute arose out of an e-tender issued for embankment strengthening and anti-erosion work in District, Tripura. The petitioner, a Class-1(A) contractor, participated in the tender process and emerged as the lowest bidder (L1). However, the contract was awarded to the second-lowest bidder (L2).

Even though the petitioner quoted significantly lower than the estimated cost and was declared as the lowest bidder, his bid was not accepted and work order was given to the L2 bidder.

Aggrieved, the petitioner filed a writ petition, contending that the decision as arbitrary and contrary to public interest, and it caused financial loss to the State.

In response the State submitted that the petitioner failed to demonstrate the required prior experience and even his quoted rate was very poor and abnormally low.

The Court stated that the petitioner was the lowest bidder, and awarding him the contract would have resulted in substantial savings for the State. It remarked that the deviation of norm of awarding contracts to the lost bidder, must be supported by strong and rational justification.

Further the Court noted that the L2 contractor was not working efficiently and was being given repeated extensions without justification.

Thus, the Court remarked that this shows that the authorities had acted with clear bias in favour of the L2 bidder.

In conclusion, the Court declared the award arbitrary, on account of bias and favouritism.

Case Name: Abu Sufian v/s The State of Tripura

Case No.: WP( C) No.183 of 2025

Date of Decision: 13.03.2026

For the Petitioner (s): Mr. P. Roy Barman, Sr. Advocate, Mr. Samarjit Bhattacharjee, Advocate, Mr. Dipjyoti Paul, Advocate.

For the Respondents: Mr. Kohinoor N Bhattacharyya, G.A., Mrs. Pinki Chakraborty, Advocate, Mr. Tanmay Debbarma, Advocate.

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