LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has upheld a decision of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) appellate committee that set aside Faisalabad Electric Supply Company’s (Fesco) rejection of a bidder in a public procurement dispute.

Justice Raheel Kamran dismissed Fesco’s writ petition and ruled that procuring agencies cannot introduce fresh disqualification grounds beyond the criteria disclosed in bidding documents.

According to details, Fesco invited bids for procurement of various items under the Public Procurement Rules, 2004. M/s Associated Technologies (Pvt.) Ltd and another company participated in the bidding process.

Upon evaluation, Fesco declared the company commercially non-responsive on the basis of adverse performance feedback obtained from Hyderabad Electric Supply Company (Hesco) and awarded the contract to another bidder.

The company challenged the decision before Fesco’s Grievance Redressal Committee but failed.

It later approached the PPRA appellate committee, which accepted its appeal and set aside the decision of the grievance committee.

In its petition before the high court, Fesco argued that the bidder had a history of unsatisfactory conduct in a Hesco tender and had concealed pending litigation against Hesco.

It further contended that the procurement process had already been completed and the successful bidder had supplied the goods and received payment.

However, Justice Kamran held that rules 29 and 30 of the Public Procurement Rules required procuring agencies to evaluate bids strictly according to pre-disclosed criteria contained in the bidding documents.

The judge observed that Fesco relied on adverse feedback from Hesco regarding a separate procurement process that had not culminated in a contract and was outside the bidder’s disclosed supply record.

He noted that the evaluation report shows that the company had quoted rates comparatively lower than those offered by the other company for all the items under procurement.

The judge said the record further reflects that the respondent company had furnished details of as many as 34 completed projects.

He ruled that such material could not be used as an independent disqualifying ground because it was not expressly incorporated in the bidding criteria.

Justice Kamran observed that public procurement must remain transparent, fair and predictable, adding that procuring agencies could not enlarge or modify evaluation criteria during the bidding process.

Dismissing the petition, the judge ruled that the PPRA appellate committee’s decision did not suffer from illegality, perversity or jurisdictional defect warranting constitutional interference.

Published in Dawn, May 14th, 2026