JABALPUR, India, Aug. 18 -- Madhya Pradesh High Court issued the following judgment/order on July 18:
1. Petitioner has filed subject Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the action of the respondents authorities in floating an Expression of Interest (EOI) dated 22.05.2025 for development of five ropeway projects in the State of Madhya Pradesh under the Design, Build, Finance, Operate, and Transfer (DBFOT) model. As per the petitioner, three out of the five projects have been mandated to comply with European CEN standards and two to follow the BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) standards. It is the contention of the petitioner that by prescribing the European standards the respondents are ousting qualified Indian manufacturers thus, violating the National Policies.
2. Learned counsel for petitioner submits that BIS standards are far better and cheaper than the European CEN standards. Learned counsel submits that the tenders prescribed the different estimated ropeway projects costs with one ropeway costing about 133.39 Crores and others costing as low as about 17.03 Crores. Learned counsel submits that the different standards have been prescribed to oust various tenderers and to cause a loss to the exchequer.
3. We are unable to accept the contention of learned counsel for petitioner for the reason that respondents have floated an open tender and the bid submission date has not yet been reached. Petitioner is not one of the entities which is bidding for the projects or submitting a bid. There is no entity before us contending that any Indian manufacturer or Indian manufactured products have been ousted. There is no instance given by the petition as to how the Indian manufacturers are likely to be ousted, in case, they follow the standards prescribed by the tender document. Even as per the petitioner's own case, the Indian standards are higher than the European standards and cheaper. If Indian standards are higher then any manufacturer manufacturing the products as per the Indian standards, would be easily able to achieve the standards prescribed in the tender document at a much lower rate. The tender being an open tender and an Indian manufacturer would be able to give a competitive bid thereby ensuring that the tender is awarded to a qualified bidder submitting a low financial bid. None of the grounds raised by the petitioner as contended by learned counsel for petitioner are born out from the record of the case. It is also not contended that petitioner is technically qualified to evaluate into the specification and standards.
4. In our view, the petitioner has failed to show that any public interest is likely to be affected as of now. Once the bids are received, the authorities would obviously consider the same keeping in view the standards prescribed as well as the financial bids received. The salient features of proposed ropeway shows that the ropeways have different horizontal length, vertical rise, speed and hourly capacity as well as the type of ropeways system proposed. For example in Salkanpur ropeway where the estimated project cost is 133.39 Crores, the horizontal length of ropeway is 1500 meters viz a viz a Raisen Fort where the estimated project cost is 17.03 Crores and horizontal length is 580 meters the vertical rise in Salkanpur ropeway is 263 meters as against 127 meters of Raisen Fort, the speed is 5 m/s viz a viz 3 m/s and the hourly capacity (PPHPD) is 1200 viz a viz 400 . The tender also specifies that for selection of technology, type of system, a few points were kept in mind like sustainability, adequacy, cost, future maintenance support, etc.
*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://mphc.gov.in/upload/jabalpur/MPHCJB/2025/WP/23026/WP_23026_2025_FinalOrder_18-07-2025_digi.pdf)
Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.
