Himachal: Order to remove executive engineer from post due to irregularities in tender

August 13, 2025

The Himachal Pradesh High Court has taken a tough stand on the irregularities in the tender process in the Jal Shakti Department. During the hearing of the PIL, the court found that offline tenders are being issued by dividing the work into pieces to avoid e-tendering. Given this, the court has ordered the immediate removal of Ajay Sharma, Executive Engineer, Jwali Division, Jal Shakti Department and withdrawal of his services. The court directed the state government that he will not be given any important and tendering work related to financial matters. The next hearing of the case will be on September 16.

The division bench of Chief Justice Gurmeet Singh Sandhawalia and Justice Ranjan Sharma, while hearing the case, found that despite the tender limit being five lakhs, the department is issuing offline tenders of less than that. Without e-tendering, the parameters are being flouted in the tender allocation and the process is being violated.

The High Court has stayed the tender notification issued on August 4, 2025. The court directed that no new tender will be issued without e-tendering till the next hearing. While issuing tenders, the works will not be divided but less work will be kept in mind. The court has paid special attention to the allegations against Ajay Sharma, who was posted as Executive Engineer in Jwali Division of Jal Shakti Department.

The court said, works were deliberately divided into small pieces to avoid e-tendering.

The court was informed through a PIL that Ajay Sharma retired from government service on March 29. After reappointment on the same post on April 2, he took over as Executive Engineer. The court has expressed concern that after reappointment, Ajay Sharma decided to issue tenders for 49 works on August 4, all of which were less than Rs 1 lakh. The court said that works are being deliberately divided into small parts to avoid the e-tender process.