The Court emphasized that prior debarment of a partner cannot preclude a reconstituted firm from participating in future tenders, provided proper notifications are made.

The appeal is arising out of a judgment dated

18.02.2026 in a writ petition filed by a limited partnership firm challenging the decision of the Tender Evaluation Committee dated 27.11.2025. The appellant is a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) firm. Prior to 18.10.2025, one Sri.K.V.Sankarankutty was among the partners of the LLP and as a contractor of the Lakshadweep Electricity Department, he had been debarred from participating in any work of the Department for a period of two years. He appears to have been debarred on 17.10.2025. Admittedly, he was a partner of the writ appellant till 17.10.2025. Possibly sensing that if his name appears in the list of partners that could be a ground for rejection of the tender at the threshold in view of clause 6.7 of the terms and conditions of the tender document, which specifically states that the bidder shall not be either blacklisted or debarred by Central Government or any of the State/UT Government/PSUs a reconstitution of the LLP was effected in a hurry. A self declaration regarding blacklisting status was required to be submitted along with Bid.

2. The learned counsel for the writ appellant has submitted that in view of the reconstitution of the partnership on 18.10.2025, the Tender Committee could not have rejected the technical bid on the ground that one of its earlier partners namely Sri.K.V.Sankarankutty was blacklisted by the Department for two years. Initially, an interim order was passed on 03.12.2025 and ultimately vacated by the impugned order dated 18.02.2026.

3. The learned counsel for the Electricity Board has placed before us the work order issued in favour of one Sri.P.R.Mukundan. During the pendency of the writ petition on 12.12.2025, a further interim order was passed whereby the interim order dated 03.12.2025 was modified to the extent that the technical bid of the writ petitioner shall be provisionally accepted and all the financial bids including that of the writ petitioner shall be examined. It was specifically stated that the questions raised by the writ petitioner in the writ petition would be relevant only if the writ petitioner happened to be L1. Admittedly, during the evaluation, the Tender Committee has found and selected the writ appellant as L1. However, after the interim order was vacated, the writ petition was dismissed and the work order was issued in favour of Sri.P.R.Mukundan.

4. The learned counsel appearing on behalf of the Administration of Union Territory of Lakshadweep tried to justify such action in view of the fact that the work was of immediate necessity and in view of the fact that the interim order was vacated and the writ petition was dismissed, the work order was issued in public interest.

5. Although we are of the view that the writ petition could not have been dismissed having regard to the fact that the bid of the appellant was to be considered on the basis of the Limited Liability Partnership as on the date of submission of the bid, we are unable to grant any relief to the appellant in this proceedings in view of the fact that there is no formal communication of the reconstitution of the partnership when the impugned order was passed by the Tender Committee and the documents submitted before the Tender Committee have referred to the name of Sri.K.V.Sankarankutty which could have created a reasonable doubt in the mind of the Tender Committee at the time of evaluation of the tender to come to conclude that the tender of the LLP cannot be accepted as one among the part