Punjab and Haryana HC Sets Aside PSPCL Purchase Order for 1,000 Power Quality Meters, Finds Winning Bidder Lacked Mandatory Type Test Reports

The Division Bench held that PSPCL's award to the L-1 bidder was patently arbitrary because multiple mandatory type test certificates were absent at the time of bid submission and remained outstanding even after the purchase order was placed on 18 March 2026.

A Division Bench of the High Court of Punjab and Haryana at Chandigarh, comprising Justice Deepak Sibal and Justice Lapita Banerji, has set aside the decision of the Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) declaring respondent No. 3 as the successful bidder in a tender for the supply, installation, testing, commissioning and one-year operation and maintenance of 1,000 Class A power quality meters. The court found that the award was “most arbitrary and completely irrational” because the winning bidder had not uploaded the type test certificates mandatorily required by the Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT) along with its e-bid, and many of those reports were still missing even after PSPCL placed the purchase order. The judgment, pronounced on 7 July 2026, directs PSPCL to initiate a fresh tender process.

The Tender and What the NIT Required

On 20 February 2025, PSPCL issued Tender Enquiry No. MQP-246/2024-25/PO(M) inviting e-bids for the procurement of 1,000 permanent power quality meters compliant with IEC 61000-4-30 Class A. The meters were to measure voltage and current harmonics, flicker, sags and swells, and related parameters for 11 kV and above supply systems.

Clause 3.0 of the NIT prescribed 13 applicable standards, including IEC 61000-4-30, IEEE 519, IEC 61000-4-7, IEC 61000-4-15, and IS 17036:2018, among others. Clauses 5.0 and 6.0 set out eight general technical requirements and logging specifications. Clause 29.0 required constructional and environmental type tests covering shock (IEC 60068-2-27), vibration (IEC 60068-2-6), and damp heat cyclic testing (IEC 60068-2-30).

Clause 28.0 was explicit: type test reports from any recognised national or international laboratory, certifying compliance with all prescribed standards, were to be uploaded with the e-bid. The clause added that reports generated in a manufacturer's own laboratory would not be accepted, and that if the required certificates were not enclosed with the offer, “the offer shall be rejected.” Item 14 of the 18-document mandatory checklist reproduced the same obligation.

Corrigendum-IV and Its Limited Scope

At the pre-bid meeting of 27 February 2025, a prospective bidder, M/s Energy Electricals, suggested that bids accompanied by type test reports conforming to IEC 61000-4-30 Edition 2015 — rather than the 2021 edition — should not be rejected on that ground alone. PSPCL accepted this suggestion and issued Corrigendum-IV on 7 April 2025.

The corrigendum added a note to Clause 28.0: if a type test report submitted with the bid pertained to IEC 61000-4-30 Ed. 3 (Class A) but had certain shortfalls, PSPCL's competent authority could accept an undertaking from the bidder to get those tests conducted at no extra cost and submit the requisite reports before the start of supply or before the issue of an empanelment letter. The last date for submission of e-bids was consequently extended to 17 April 2025, with opening fixed for 21 April 2025.

The Division Bench read Corrigendum-IV narrowly. It held that the corrigendum only addressed bids that had already submitted a type test report for IEC 61000-4-30 but in the 2015 edition rather than the 2021 edition. Applying the same logic to other prescribed standards, the court said, minor shortfalls in already-submitted reports could be cured before supply. What the corrigendum did not authorise was the acceptance of bids that arrived with no test reports at all for particular prescribed standards, or the filing of entirely fresh reports for the first time well after the bid deadline.

What Respondent No. 3 Actually Filed — and When

The technical bids were opened on 28 April 2025. Bench testing of samples was conducted by PSPCL's Data Assessment Committee (DAC) at ME Laboratory, Jalandhar, in May 2025. PSPCL subsequently wrote to bidders seeking clarifications and remaining test reports. On 10 July 2025, the petitioner submitted its IEC 61000-4-30 Edition 2021 test report. Respondent No. 3's original equipment manufacturer, M/s Siemens Limited, wrote on 9 July 2025 undertaking to furnish the IEC 61000-4-30 Edition 2021 report and other outstanding reports before supply.

A second round of bench testing was held on 24 September 2025. The petitioner and other bidders declined to participate, contending the re-test was not sanctioned by the NIT and was being conducted to accommodate respondent No. 3. Only M/s ESFRO Solutions and respondent No. 3 took part. On 3 October 2025, respondent No. 3 was declared to have passed the bench test. Both the petitioner and respondent No. 3 were thereafter found technically qualified, and financial bids were opened on 9 October 2025. A reverse e-auction was held on 10 October 2025; respondent No. 3 quoted the lowest price and was declared L-1.

Negotiations on 2 December 2025 led respondent No. 3 to voluntarily extend its operation and maintenance commitment from one year to five years at no extra cost. PSPCL placed the purchase order on respondent No. 3 on 18 March 2026.

What followed revealed the extent of the gap. The court tabulated the status of all 20 categories of required test reports against the bid deadline of 17 April 2025 and the purchase order date of 18 March 2026. Six EMC immunity standard reports — for IEC 61000-4-2, IEC 61000-4-3, IEC 61000-4-4, IEC 61000-4-5, IEC 61000-4-6, and IEC 61000-4-12 — were furnished by respondent No. 3 for the first time on 8 May 2026, more than a year after the bid deadline and weeks after the purchase order was placed. Construction, material, and environmental test reports (IEC 60529, IEC 60695-2-1, ISO 75) were also submitted for the first time on 8 May 2026. Four reports remained outstanding even at the time of the hearing: shock test (IEC 60068-2-27), vibration test (IEC 60068-2-6), damp heat cyclic test (IEC 60068-2-30), and the over and under deviation type test.

The Court's Reasoning on Arbitrariness

The bench drew a clear line between what Corrigendum-IV permitted and what PSPCL actually did. The corrigendum was designed to avoid rejection of bids that carried IEC 61000-4-30 reports in the 2015 edition; it did not authorise PSPCL to evaluate bids accompanied by no reports at all for several prescribed standards, nor to place a purchase order before those gaps were filled.

The court observed that uploading type test reports with the e-bid was both mandatory and reasonable for equipment as technically sophisticated as Class A power quality meters. The NIT's insistence on pre-bid certification existed precisely so the buyer could assess whether the offered equipment was worth consideration before committing public funds. PSPCL had, in the court's words, “put the cart in front of the horse” by placing an order for 1,000 highly sophisticated electrical meters without knowing whether they met all prescribed technical specifications.

The bench acknowledged the well-settled principle, affirmed in Tata Cellular v. Union of India (1994) 6 SCC 651, Afcons Infrastructure Ltd. v. Nagpur Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (2016) 16 SCC 818, and Silppi Constructions Contractors v. Union of India (2020) 16 SCC 489, that constitutional courts exercise restraint in tendering matters and interfere only where the decision-making process is mala fide, intended to favour someone, or so arbitrary or irrational that no responsible authority acting reasonably could have reached it. The court held this case met that threshold.

The bench also drew on Banshidhar Construction Pvt. Ltd. v. Bharat Coking Coal Limited (2024) 10 SCC 273, where the Supreme Court set aside a tender award made to a bidder that had not complied with a mandatory document requirement while the compliant bidder's offer was rejected. The Punjab and Haryana HC found that situation directly analogous: PSPCL had accepted respondent No. 3's bid despite the absence of several mandatory certificates and then placed an order on it, while the bidding conditions requiring those certificates remained unchanged for all other participants.

On the separate contention that the operation and maintenance period had been extended from one year to five years in negotiations without notice to the petitioner, the court declined to express a view, having already found the award unsustainable on the type test grounds.

Outcome

The Division Bench allowed CWP No. 8897-2026. The decision of PSPCL declaring respondent No. 3 as the successful bidder is set aside. The purchase order dated 18 March 2026 and any action or agreement entered into pursuant to that decision also stand set aside. PSPCL is free to initiate a fresh tender process for the procurement of 1,000 Class A power quality meters and to process it in accordance with law. The judgment was pronounced on 7 July 2026 and uploaded on 8 July 2026.