Delhi high court order has crippled consular, visa services at 4 missions: Govt to Supreme Court | India News

NEW DELHI: The Centre told Supreme Court Friday that visa and consular services, which are outsourced, offered to lakhs of Indian nationals, OCIs and foreign visa applicants were severely impacted in Indian missions in Abu Dhabi (UAE), Kuwait, Singapore and Canberra (Australia) as Delhi high court had quashed the selection of private service providers.“We outsource consular, passport and visa services to private entities like other countries. The cancellation of award of tender to the successful bidder has brought these services in four countries to a standstill. The Indian missions have diverted staff to meet emergency needs of people,” solicitor general Tushar Mehta told a CJI Kant-led bench, which agreed to list the appeal for hearing on Monday.HC on Wednesday set aside the entire technical evaluation process undertaken by the ‘expert outsourcing committees’ for four Indian missions abroad, annulled the award of tender in favour of a private party despite execution of the contract and commencement of services by the highest bidder and directed govt to float a fresh request for proposal (RFP).Between Nov 2025 and Jan 2026, separate RFPs were floated by the Indian missions in Abu Dhabi, Kuwait, Singapore, Canberra and Riyadh, each contemplating a two-stage bidding process: a technical-bid stage followed by a financial-bid stage, with the opening of financial bids confined to bidders securing the minimum qualifying score of 70 out of 100 marks in the technical evaluation. Each bidder, including E Trav Tech Ltd which challenged the rejection of its bid before HC, had accepted the evaluation methodology. E Trav Tech failed to qualify the technical stage before seven independent missions as it scored below par in the evaluations, the Centre said.