Delhi High Court Upholds CRPF's Decision To Reject Company's Bid In Tender For Procuring Sniper Rifles, Ammunitions

The Delhi High Court has upheld the decision of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) rejecting bid of a company in a tender for procuring 200 Sniper Rifles along with day scope and 20,000 Lapua Magnum Ammunitions.

A division bench comprising Justice Manmeet Pritam Singh Arora and Justice Rajneesh Kumar Gupta observed that matters relating to tender has to be minimal and to be exercised only if the Court finds that the decision of the tendering authority is arbitrary or whimsical or unreasonable.

The Bench dismissed a plea filed by Stumpp Schuele Lewis Machine Tools Private Limited challenging the rejection of its bid by CRPF and to disqualify the other participating entities- PLR Systems (India) Limited and ICOMM Tele Limited, from the evaluation process of the tender as having not satisfied the stipulated conditions.

The petitioner company made a representation to CRPF stating that the other participating entities had used Hollow Point Boat Tail Ammunition in the trials, whereas the specified variant of the ammunition as per the Tender document was Ball or Lock Base Ammunition.

It was stated that since the Petitioner company had used Ball or Lock Base Ammunition in the trials and other companies had used HPBT Ammunition, they had an undue advantage.

It was also stated that that the petitioner company's representation was decided against it and its bid was rejected by CRPF.

Rejecting the plea, the Court said that the minutes of the pre-trial meeting recorded that the trial methodology was accepted by all the bidders, including the Petitioner company.

It added that the Petitioner had issued a fair trial certificate after the conclusion of the trials held at Kadarpur, Gurugram and thus, the company was estopped from raising the grounds set out in its letter to CRPF.

The Court concluded that the Petitioner company was unable to show any arbitrariness or unreasonableness or malafide on the part of CRPF.

It added that it is trite law that a bidder after having participated in the tender cannot challenge the implementation of the terms of the tender just because it has resulted in his disqualification.

“In view of findings returned at issue no. I, this Court finds that the decision taken by Respondent No. 2 in disqualifying the Petitioner vide impugned rejection letter dated 27.03.2025 was not arbitrary, unreasonable or irrational as the Petitioner was unable to point out any unfairness in the field trials,” the Court said.

Counsel for Petitioner: Mr. Gaurav Agarwal, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Rohit Rao, Mr. Ananga Bhattacharya and Ms. Krishanu Barua, Advocates

Counsel for Respondents: Mr. Rohan Jaitley, CGSC for UOI with Mr. Varun Pratap Singh, Mr. Dev Pratap Shani and Mr. Yogya Bhatia, Advocates for R-1 and R-2 with Mr. Raj Kumar, DIGLAW, CRPF; Mr. Harin P. Raval, Sr. Advocate with Mr. Nilana Bandhopadhyay, Mr. Kumar Shashwat Singh, Ms. Surbhi Rana and Ms. Shreya Bansal, Advocates for R-3; Mr. Anil Kumar Mishra, Ms. Mrinal Bharti, Mr. Manish Kr. Shekhari, Ms. Anisha Mahajan, and Mr. Hemant Dixit, Advocates for R-4

Title: STUMPP SCHUELE LEWIS MACHINE TOOLS PVT LTD v. UNION OF INDIA & ORS

Citation: 2025 LiveLaw (Del) 1057

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