The Supreme Court has held that the specialised experience required under Clause 9(c)(a) of the Punjab Mandi Board’s enlistment instructions cannot be satisfied by incidental collection made during a cattle fair lease, and that a bidder cannot approbate and reprobate on the meaning of an identical clause it previously accepted as disqualifying. The Court explained that Clause 9(c)(a) requires demonstrated, specialised experience of collecting user charges or parking fees as a contractual duty owed to a Government, Semi-Government or PSU body, not merely any incidental collection made in the course of an unrelated commercial engagement such as organising a cattle fair.
The Apex Court said that the experience certificates issued in the names of three separate entities, none of which was the H1 Bidder, cannot be attributed to the bidder without substantiating material such as a partnership deed or registration under the Indian Partnership Act, 1932. Further, a bidder that acquiesced in a particular construction of an identical experience clause when that construction operated to its disqualification at other tendering forums cannot press for the opposite construction before a different authority applying the same clause.
The Apex Court also emphasised that the Revenue considerations cannot cure ineligibility, as bids can be compared only among bidders who are eligible to be compared in the first place, otherwise every eligibility condition would yield to the highest figure quoted. At the same time, a tender condition cannot be treated as mandatory in the abstract and directory only in its application to a favoured bidder; the Committee itself proceeded on the footing that the experience criterion was mandatory.
A Two-Judge Bench comprising Justice K.V. Viswanathan and Justice Alok Aradhe observed that the experience contemplated by Clause 9(c)(a) of the Punjab Mandi Board’s enlistment instructions is a specialised one. The collection of user charges or parking fees as a contractual duty owed to, and accountable to, a Government, Semi-Government or PSU body, and not merely any incidental collection made in the course of an unrelated commercial engagement.
Organising a cattle fair, the Court noted, is a fundamentally different undertaking; under the Punjab Cattle Fairs (Regulation) Rules, 1968, the fair organiser is a lessee who pays rent to the authority, not an agent appointed to collect and remit statutory user charges on its behalf. The Court further observed that the certificates produced by the H1 Bidder did not establish its own experience, as they were issued in the names of three separate entities, none of which was Micky Traders, and no partnership deed or registration material was placed on record to substantiate the claimed nexus.
The Court also noted that the H1 Bidder had itself been held technically non-responsive on identical experience clauses by the Marketing Committees at Patiala and Rajpura, and had not challenged those determinations, meaning it could not now press for the opposite construction of the same clause.
Briefly, Punjab State Agricultural Marketing Board and the Market Committee, Ludhiana, issued a Detailed Notice Inviting Tender (DNIT) on Feb 13, 2026, for recovery/ realization of user charges from vehicles using Mandi infrastructure for twelve months, with a reserve price of Rs. 12.21 crores per annum. In response, Micky Traders (H1 Bidder) submitted a bid of Rs. 16.51 crores, while L.R.Y. Labour Contractor (H2 Bidder) bid Rs. 15.03 crores. The H1 Bidder was declared successful, and a Letter of Acceptance was issued on March 20, 2026.
The H2 Bidder challenged this before the Punjab and Haryana High Court, contending that the H1 Bidder did not possess the requisite two years’ experience of collecting user charges or parking fees immediately preceding Dec 31, 2025, as mandated by Clause 9(c)(a) of the Board’s enlistment instructions. The High Court quashed the acceptance of the H1 Bidder’s technical and financial bids and directed issuance of a fresh LoA to the eligible tenderer.
