Tender Details RTI: government contract transparency

Public money buys roads, medicines, computers and midday-meal rice through tenders. Every stage leaves a record, and the procurement rules themselves push much of it into the open: the General Financial Rules 2017 and the Department of Expenditure's Manual for Procurement of Goods, now in its Second Edition of 2024, require publication of tender notices and award outcomes. The RTI Act is what you use when the published version is thin and the file itself tells the fuller story.

• Tender notice, corrigenda, pre-bid queries — on the Central Public Procurement Portal, eprocure.gov.in, for central procurements above the thresholds, and on state portals for state works.
• GeM marketplace — gem.gov.in publishes bid summaries and contract awards on its public dashboards.
• Award communication — the successful bidder and contract value are published after award under the procurement rules.

An RTI that asks for information already published invites rejection under the Act's own scheme. Quote the tender number, read what is public, then ask the file for the rest.

Section 8(1)(d) exempts information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, whose disclosure would harm the competitive position of a third party — unless the larger public interest warrants disclosure. Applied to tenders:

• Before bid opening — competing bidders' priced bids are protected. Asking for them mid-tender is the standard rejected RTI.
• After bid opening and after award — the evaluation matrix, L1 justification note and contract terms lose that protection in most circumstances: the competition is over, and public money is committed. Public interest tilts the §10 balancing test toward disclosure.
• Running bills, measurement books, quality reports — post-execution records of how the work actually progressed. Administrative records of the department, disclosable.
• The fiduciary defence — the Supreme Court shut down the easy version of it in RBI v. Jayantilal Mistry (December 2015): a public authority holding a third party's information is not automatically a fiduciary, and cannot refuse disclosure merely by naming the relationship.

• RTI Act 2005 — §6(1) application, §7(1) 30-day reply, §8(1)(d) commercial confidence, §10 severability, §11 third-party procedure, §19 appeals.
• General Financial Rules 2017 — the procurement framework, with compilations updated by the Department of Expenditure into 2026.
• Manual for Procurement of Goods, Second Edition 2024 — the Department of Expenditure's operating manual, along with its Model Tender Documents.
• CVC Act 2003 — the Central Vigilance Commission's mandate over procurement complaints.

To,
The Public Information Officer,
[Procuring department / authority],
[Office and address].

Subject: Application under §6(1) of the RTI Act 2005 —
records of tender No. [NUMBER] dated [DATE] for
[WORK / SUPPLY]

Sir/Madam,

Kindly provide:

1. The list of bidders who participated, with the
   technical and financial bid status of each.
2. The evaluation matrix and comparative statement,
   including L1, L2 and L3 positions.
3. The justification note or acceptance note for the
   award to the successful bidder, with file notings.
4. The executed agreement: scope, value, and delivery
   or completion period.
5. Running account bills paid to date, measurement
   book entries, and inspection or quality reports
   for the work up to [DATE].
6. Whether any participating bidder stands
   blacklisted or debarred by any authority, with
   copies of orders.

Tender stage: [post-bid-opening / post-award /
post-execution].

Payment of Rs 10 is made by [IPO/DD/online].

Yours faithfully,
[Name, full address, phone, email, date]

• Day 31, no or evasive reply — first appeal under §19(1) to the department's First Appellate Authority.
• Day 76 onwards — second appeal under §19(3) to the Central Information Commission for central authorities, or the State Information Commission for state works.
• Procedural irregularity — a complaint to the Central Vigilance Commission, which has statutory charge of corruption complaints in central procurement; state works go to the state's vigilance establishment or Lokayukta.
• Arbitrary award — a writ petition remains the courts' territory; the RTI reply is the evidence that makes it arguable.

• Asking for priced bids before bid opening — §8(1)(d) legitimately applies there.
• Filing to the user department instead of the procuring authority that owns the tender file. §6(3) transfer costs 5 days.
• Omitting the tender number and date — the PIO answers “no such record”.
• Asking “was there corruption?” — an opinion question. Ask for the matrix, the bills and the reports.
• Forgetting the third-party angle: if the PIO invokes §11, the bidder gets a hearing, and the reply can take 15 more days. Ask anyway.

The notice, corrigenda and pre-bid clarifications are public. Competing bidders' documents become askable only after bid opening, and the balance tilts firmly to disclosure after award.

Rarely for the award itself — the marketplace publishes bid summaries and awards. Use RTI for the department's internal justification and file notings.

The municipality or its engineering wing is the public authority. For a state PWD work it is the PWD division; for central works, the department's CPIO.

Section 11 gives the bidder a chance to object, but objection is not veto. The authority must weigh public interest under §8(1)(d)'s own proviso, and the Commission reviews that balance on appeal.

You can ask whether any participating bidder stands blacklisted or debarred and for copies of orders. Whether a specific order is disclosed depends on the authority's own severability call — the question itself is legitimate.

The First Appeal Builder writes the §19(1) appeal from your RTI details, and the Timeline Tracker prints your deadlines.

• Tender RTI — the PIO-side playbook
• File RTI online — 12 steps
• RTI — 25 questions answered
• The RTI Playbook — the complete method, chapter by chapter

• Department of Expenditure, Manual for Procurement of Goods, Second Edition 2024, and GFR 2017 compilations: doe.gov.in/manuals
• Central Public Procurement Portal: eprocure.gov.in · GeM: gem.gov.in
• RBI v. Jayantilal N. Mistry, (2015) — Supreme Court, 16 December 2015, fiduciary relationship narrowed
• RTI Act 2005, §6, §7(1), §8(1)(d), §10, §11, §19: cic.gov.in

Last reviewed: 27 August 2026. Manual edition corrected to the Second Edition of 2024 from the Department of Expenditure page; GFR 2017 and CPPP publication practice verified; the fiduciary-defence position restated from the Supreme Court's Jayantilal Mistry ruling. Two case citations carried by the earlier version could not be verified and have been removed.