Judicial review of tender processes is limited to the decision-making process. Courts will not interfere with commercial decisions unless they are arbitrary, irrational, or mala fide. Participation in pre-bid meetings and acceptance of tender conditions estops a bidder from challenging those terms subsequently.

JUDGMENT

LAPITA BANERJI, J.

Challenge in the present writ petition is to a Technical Evaluation Report dated February 25, 2026 (Annexure P-1) by the Punjab Health Systems Corporation-respondent No.1 and all the consequential actions taken thereto by respondent No.1 resulting in award of the tender in question, to the respondent No.2 company.

2. The brief facts of the case are as follows:

i) The petitioner is a private limited company involved in providing healthcare technologies and solutions in the field of diagnostic and therapeutic procedures.

ii) The respondent No.1 issued an e-tender dated December 01, 2025 (hereinafter referred to as the “Subject Tender”) for supply and installation of a 3.0 Tesla Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) Machine (hereinafter referred to as the “MRI Machine”) at the Punjab Institute of Liver Biliary Sciences, Phase-3B1, SAS Nagar, Mohali, Punjab.

iii) Annexure-VIII of the bid documents contained the technical specifications of the MRI machine in order for a bid to be technically responsive. The said specifications related to the magnet, shim system, gradient system, coils, computer system image processor, image sequencing etc.

iv) On December 02, 2025, a pre-bid meeting was held with all the prospective bidders, inter alia, to discuss the mandatory specifications of the Subject Tender and clarifications regarding the same.

v) Certain Clauses were amended subsequent to the issuance of the Notice Inviting Tenders (NIT). The said Clauses are as follows:

a) Dedicated coil/coil combination for peripheral angiography of 32 or more channels with coverage of at least 80 cm, to be exclusively quoted for that application and not overlapping with other clinical applications; [Annexure VIII, Clause 5(e) and 5.a of the Bid Document, as subsequently amended]

b) Provision of Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning- based image reconstruction applications such as Deep Resolve Boost or Swift Brain or AIR Recon DL or SMARTSPEED or equivalent, duly supported by original product literature; [Added by way of subsequent clarification/amendment]

c) Availability of single and multi-shot EPI imaging techniques; [Annexure VIII, Clause 10 of the Bid document]

d) Completely free-breathing dynamic liver imaging with motion correction with temporal resolution of 7 seconds per phase or better (CS GRASP VIBE/CS THRIVE/DISCO Star or equivalent); [Annexure VIII, Clause 11(kk)(1)of the Bid Document] and e) The specification regarding accessories was also specified originally under Annexure VIII, Clause 17 of the Bid Documents and underwent substantial amendment/modification thereafter.”

vi) After the pre-bid negotiations, the bids relating to the Subject Tender were submitted online by the prospective bidders within the stipulated time i.e January 28, 2026. On January 30, 2026 the technical bids were opened and bids of both the petitioner and respondent No.2 were held to be technically responsive. The petitioner identified multiple material deviations in the technical bid submitted by the respondent No.2 company, which according to the petitioner made the bid liable to be rejected.

Broadly, the said non-compliances were as follows:

a) Non-compliance wit