Judicial review is impermissible when expert reports attribute e-auction bidding failures to bidder-end technical lapses.

The Petitioner, a mining company, participated in an e-auction conducted by Respondent No. 2 (MSTC Ltd) on behalf of Respondent No. 1 (State of Maharashtra) for a composite license for the Bhimsain Killa Gold Block

During the second round of bidding on 11.12.2025, the Petitioner alleged that a "technical glitch" at 05:47 PM prevented them from submitting a revised final bid of 45.75%, resulting in Respondent No. 3 being declared the preferred bidder

The Petitioner challenged the notice dated 12.12.2025 declaring Respondent No. 3 the winner and sought a resumption of the auction

Per a court order dated 05.02.2026, the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) was appointed as an expert body to investigate the alleged glitch

The Court applied the principles of judicial restraint in administrative action as established in Tata Cellular v. Union of India, noting that courts lack the expertise to correct specialized administrative decisions

It relied on Jagdish Mandal v. State of Orissa, which holds that judicial review in tender matters is limited to checking for arbitrariness, mala fides, or irrationality, rather than the "soundness" of the decision

furthermore, it followed Jindal Steel and Power Limited v. Union of India, which cautions against exercising jurisdiction under Article 226 in matters involving highly technical adjudications

The Court analyzed the CERT-In report, which utilized firewall logs, Web Application Firewall (WAF) records, and database artifacts to determine that the MSTC portal remained continuously available throughout the auction

The Expert's "Root Cause Analysis" revealed that the Petitioner likely overlooked or minimized a PIN verification pop-up window required for DSC authentication, putting the session in a "wait state" and causing the "Page Unresponsive" alert

The Court noted that the Petitioner had manually cleared security event logs and browsing history from the laptop used for bidding, suggesting an attempt to obscure the facts

This conduct, combined with the expert finding that the fault was attributable solely to the Petitioner's end and not the server, led the Court to conclude there was no arbitrariness or systemic failure warranting interference

The Court answered the issues by stating that the failed login was attributable to the Petitioner and thus the tender process was not vitiated by irrationality or mala fides

The Petitioner was ordered to reimburse Respondent No. 2 for the costs incurred in obtaining the CERT-In expert report within three weeks. Interim relief was refused and the rule was discharged