New Delhi
The Delhi High Court on Tuesday quashed the Ministry of External Affairs’ (MEA) technical evaluation process and the consequential award of contracts for outsourcing Consular, Passport and Visa (CPV) services at Indian missions in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra, holding that the evaluation was arbitrary, opaque and unsupported by reasons.
The court directed the Centre and the concerned Indian missions to issue fresh Requests for Proposal (RFPs) within one month and complete the procurement process afresh in accordance with law.
The judgment, however, comes at a time when the litigation has already begun affecting passport, visa and consular services in several countries, with temporary suspension of outsourced services, emergency arrangements by Indian missions and uncertainty over the transition to new service providers.
A Division Bench of Justice Anil Kshetarpal and Justice Shail Jain delivered the judgment while deciding seven connected petitions filed by E Trav Tech Ltd. and Verasys Ltd., which had challenged their technical disqualification after failing to secure the minimum qualifying score of 70 per cent required to qualify for the financial bid stage. The petitions related to tenders floated for Indian missions in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra.
The Bench made it clear that the dispute was not about substituting the court’s assessment for that of technical experts but about examining whether the decision-making process itself satisfied the constitutional requirements of fairness, transparency and equality.
The litigation traces its origins to an earlier round of proceedings. On 10 March, the High Court declined to interfere with the tender process after recording the government’s assurance that parameter-wise marks and reasons for the technical evaluation would be disclosed after completion of the tender process.
E Trav Tech subsequently approached the Supreme Court, which on 16 April directed the government to furnish the parameter-wise breakup of marks within ten days.
Following the disclosures made in May, the petitioners again moved the High Court, contending that while numerical marks had been supplied, no reasons had been furnished explaining how those marks had been awarded.
Rejecting the Union government’s objection that the petitions were barred by res judicata, the Bench held that the challenge arose from a fresh cause of action after disclosure of the parameter-wise marks pursuant to the Supreme Court’s directions.
Examining the evaluation process, the court held that although parameter-wise marks had eventually been supplied, the authorities failed to disclose the basis on which those marks had been awarded.
The evaluation sheets neither identified deficiencies in the petitioners’ proposals nor disclosed the comparative benchmarks applied while awarding proportionately lower marks, leaving bidders with no means of understanding why their proposals had been considered inferior.
The Bench found particular fault with the comparative evaluation criteria under which the bidder offering the “best offer” was to receive full marks while other bidders would receive proportionately lower marks. It held that such comparative assessment necessarily required disclosure of the objective standards governing the comparison, which had not been done.
The judgment also pointed to unexplained inconsistencies in the marking process.
It recorded that E Trav Tech submitted substantially identical documentary material under the criterion relating to company reputation across all four missions but received four marks out of seven in Abu Dhabi and Canberra, three in Singapore and zero in Kuwait. Similarly, Verasys received five marks in Abu Dhabi but zero marks in Canberra and Kuwait despite relying on substantially identical client references. The court held that such variations remained unexplained.
The court also questioned the evaluation under objective parameters such as parking facilities, area of Indian Consular Application Centres (ICACs), number of submission counters, appointment availability and turnaround time, observing that bidders who had proposed appointment windows and turnaround times conforming to the RFP requirements nevertheless received zero marks in some missions while receiving significantly higher marks elsewhere for materially identical proposals.
During the proceedings, E Trav Tech argued that it had quoted substantially lower financial bids than the successful bidders but could not reach the financial bid stage because of the technical evaluation.
According to the submissions recorded in the judgment, E Trav quoted 38 Australian dollars against the successful bid of 114 Australian dollars for Canberra, 9 UAE dirhams against 19 dirhams for Abu Dhabi, 0.9 Kuwaiti dinars against 6 dinars for Kuwait and 19 Singapore dollars against 23.65 Singapore dollars for Singapore.
The court, however, decided the matter on the legality of the evaluation process rather than on the comparative financial bids.
While quashing the technical evaluation and the consequential tender awards, the High Court directed the MEA and the concerned missions to issue fresh RFPs within one month.
It also observed that the existing incumbents may be permitted to continue providing CPV services across the four missions so that there is no disruption in public services or inconvenience to applicants until fresh tenders are completed and new successful bidders are selected in accordance with law.
Despite that observation, the litigation has already disrupted services in several countries.
In Australia, VFS Global suspended outsourced Consular, Passport and Visa services from 1 July following directions from the High Commission of India. While emergency consular assistance continued through Indian missions, new passport and visa applications through the outsourced channel were halted pending further instructions.
The impact has also been visible in the United Arab Emirates, where the transition from BLS International and SGIVS Global to Alhind Tours and Travels was scheduled for 1 July after Alhind won the latest outsourcing contract. However, following the legal challenge, Alhind’s planned rollout of Indian Consular Application Centres was deferred. As an interim arrangement, the Embassy of India in Abu Dhabi and the Consulate General of India in Dubai began providing passport, visa, attestation and other consular services directly from their premises in a limited manner.
The UAE transition affects one of India’s largest overseas communities. BLS International and SGIVS Global, whose contracts expired on 30 June , had been providing outsourced services for years, while Alhind had planned to establish 16 Indian Consular Application Centres across the country. Several of these centres have remained ready but non-operational pending resolution of the legal dispute.
In Kuwait, the Indian Embassy announced that only emergency Consular, Passport and Visa services would be provided for a temporary period while regular outsourced services remained unavailable.
The judgment is expected to reset the procurement process for CPV outsourcing at the four missions.
However, until fresh tenders are completed and new contracts are awarded, the responsibility for ensuring uninterrupted passport, visa and consular services is likely to continue resting on interim arrangements put in place by the Indian missions and the Ministry of External Affairs.
