A bidder lacking requisite experience has no locus to challenge tender eligibility criteria.

The petitioner, an operator of Executive Lounges, challenged Clauses 1.11.4(2) and 1.11.4(3) of IRCTC’s E-Tender dated 12 June 2026 for operating an Executive Lounge at Platform No. 1, Pune Railway Station.

The impugned eligibility conditions required, inter alia, specified turnover and five years’ experience in operating and managing either a three-star or above hotel or a lounge/catering outlet at an international airport; they did not expressly recognise experience in operating Railway Executive Lounges.

The petitioner claimed experience in operating Railway Executive Lounges at Mumbai, Chennai, Lucknow and Vadodara, including at Chennai Railway Station, classified as an NSG-1 station.

IRCTC defended the criteria as part of a pilot project intended to improve service quality at Railway Executive Lounges, relying on its experience of passenger complaints regarding existing lounges.

During arguments, IRCTC agreed to amend Clauses 1.11.4(2) and 1.11.4(3) to permit Railway Executive Lounge operators to participate.

The petitioner nevertheless sought a narrower amendment limited to NSG-1 stations and reduction of the five-year experience requirement to three years, since it otherwise remained ineligible.

Whether the petitioner had locus standi to challenge the tender conditions when, by its own admission, it would remain ineligible even after the amendment sought in the writ petition because it lacked five years’ experience?

Whether the Court should interfere with IRCTC’s technical eligibility criteria for the tender by directing recognition of Railway Executive Lounge experience, particularly by limiting eligibility to operators of NSG-1 stations?

Whether the five-year experience requirement should be reduced to three years to enable the petitioner to participate in the tender?

The Court applied the settled principle governing judicial review of tender conditions that the formulation of eligibility criteria lies primarily within the domain of the tendering authority and should not ordinarily be interfered with merely because alternative or broader conditions could have been prescribed.

The Court also applied the principle that judicial directions cannot be issued to create a tailor-made tender condition intended to accommodate a particular bidder.

Further, a petitioner must demonstrate a direct and subsisting legal or commercial injury to establish locus standi; a bidder who would remain ineligible even after the relief sought cannot ordinarily maintain such a challenge.

The Court noted that IRCTC’s earlier tenders issued in 2017, 2022 and 2024 had permitted Railway Executive Lounge operators to participate, whereas the impugned tender departed from that position for the first time.

IRCTC nevertheless agreed during the proceedings to amend the eligibility criteria to include such operators, thereby substantially accepting the relief originally sought by the petitioner.

The petitioner’s additional request—to restrict participation to operators of NSG-1 stations and reduce the experience requirement from five years to three years—was not founded on the pleadings and would have effectively tailored the tender to the petitioner’s circumstances.

The Court therefore declined to impose those modifications, particularly as the petitioner admitted that it would remain ineligible even after the amendment sought in the writ petition.

That admission demonstrated the absence of a direct injury and deprived the petitioner of locus standi to challenge the tender conditions.

The Court consequently refrained from examining the broader legal question whether Railway Executive Lounge operators could validly be excluded.

It declined to direct that eligibility be restricted to NSG-1 Railway stations or that the five-year experience requirement be reduced to three years, holding that such directions would impermissibly make the tender tailor-made for the petitioner.

The legal issue of whether IRCTC could exclude Railway Executive Lounge operators was expressly left open for determination in a future case brought by a directly affected petitioner.