The Delhi high court has asked Delhi Metro to follow a transparent tendering process in its kiosk allotment policy. A division bench of chief justice D Murugesan and justice V K Jain told DMRC to call tenders while allotting kiosks in future after it came across a PIL highlighting alleged favouritism by DMRC to a firm during allotment of 37 tenders two years ago.

HC was hearing a PIL filed by one Mukesh Kumar accusing Delhi Metro of favouring a specific private firm, Hudson News Cafe. Kumar alleged there was widespread financial irregularity in the allotments.

In case of kiosks allotted to this firm, the PIL claimed there was no tender process, no publicity given to invite competition and the contract was given for 12 years when DMRC`s policy is to give it for a three-year period. The PIL accused DMRC of giving the kiosks at a huge discount to the firm, causing loss to the exchequer