Courts cannot compel relaxation of essential tender conditions or rewrite them under Article 226.

The petitioner participated in NIT No. NIT/JKMSCL/M&E/2025/655 dated 28 February 2025 for procurement of one Anatomy Virtual Dissection Table.

Clauses 12 and 13 of the tender required the bidder to submit the average annual turnover and audited financial statements of the Indian subsidiary/sole importer for the financial years 2021–22, 2022–23 and 2023–24, with UDIN certification.

During technical evaluation, the petitioner was directed to furnish, inter alia, turnover and audited balance-sheet documents for 2021–22. It instead submitted documents for 2024–25, stating that it had commenced operations only in 2022 and that the latest financial year should be considered.

The Technical Evaluation Committee rejected the petitioner’s bid as non-responsive and recommended respondent No. 5, M/s Maverick Simulation Solutions.

The petitioner sought relaxation under the Government of India’s MSME circular dated 10 March 2016 and relied on alleged relaxation granted in earlier tenders.

The present writ petition challenged the rejection decision dated 21 August 2025 and the proposed opening of the financial bids.

Whether the respondents acted unlawfully in refusing to consider the petitioner’s turnover and financial statements for 2024–25 instead of the financial years expressly stipulated in the tender, namely 2021–22, 2022–23 and 2023–24.

Whether the petitioner was entitled to relaxation of the prior-turnover requirement under the MSME circular dated 10 March 2016.

Whether the petitioner could claim parity on the basis of alleged relaxation or correction of financial-year requirements in earlier tenders.

Whether the Court ought to interfere under Article 226 with the respondents’ technical evaluation and rejection of the petitioner’s bid.

The Court applied the principle that judicial review in tender and contractual matters is limited to preventing arbitrariness, irrationality, mala fides, bias or perversity; the Court does not sit as an appellate authority over the tendering body, particularly on technical matters.

Relying on Silppi Construction Contractors v. Union of India, AIROnline 2019 SC 2430, the Court held that the authority issuing the tender is the best judge of its requirements and that courts must exercise restraint in commercial matters.

The Court also relied on Jagdish Mandal v. State of Orissa, (2007) 14 SCC 517, which holds that bona fide tender decisions taken in public interest should not be interfered with merely because a procedural or assessment error is alleged.

The MSME circular dated 10 March 2016 was interpreted as an administrative and enabling instrument applicable to Central Ministries, Departments and CPSUs, conferring discretion—not an enforceable right—to relax prior-turnover and prior-experience conditions for eligible Micro and Small Enterprises.

The Court found that the tender unambiguously prescribed the relevant financial years and required turnover and audited financial statements for those years.

Since the petitioner admittedly commenced business only in 2022, it did not possess the stipulated financial record for 2021–22 and was therefore unable to satisfy an essential qualification condition.

Its submission of 2024–25 documents could not substitute the documents expressly required by the NIT; accepting that submission would effectively require the Court to rewrite the tender conditions, which was impermissible in judicial review.

The petitioner also failed to establish that it was itself an eligible MSME manufacturer or service provider entitled to claim the relevant benefit, and the circular did not mandate relaxation by the respondents.

The alleged earlier instances did not establish a right to parity because, according to the respondents, the earlier financial-year references were inadvertent errors subsequently corrected, rather than relaxations of tender conditions.

No arbitrariness, mala fides, bias or perversity was demonstrated in the technical rejection.

It held that the respondents were justified in evaluating the bid against the financial years specified in the NIT and in rejecting the petitioner’s bid for non-compliance with an essential technical qualification.

The petitioner had no enforceable right to obtain relaxation under the MSME circular, nor could it claim parity from distinguishable earlier tender proceedings.

The writ petition was accordingly dismissed, and the connected miscellaneous application(s) were also dismissed.