New Delhi: A family-controlled network of entities has repeatedly rigged the Union government’s online tendering system to secure defence contracts adding up to crores, The Reporters’ Collective has found.

The army administration involved in the procurement orders for regiments located across the country failed to detect the repeated collusion during the tendering process despite easy evidence available to do so.

The colluding entities bid and won contracts to supply Hesco bastions and Underground Fully Sealed Capsule (UG FSC) bunkers to the Indian Army regiments across the country.

Hesco bastions are large sand-filled barriers the Indian Army uses to rapidly build defensive walls, while UG FSC bunkers are cylindrical steel shelters installed underground to house and protect troops in harsh conditions.

Scanning Army tenders between August 2025 and August 2026, we found contracts worth around Rs 9 crore in which at least two of the four related entities bid against each other. Of the 33 tenders we examined, the related entities won 18 by bidding in tandem to supply equipment to the Indian Army.

And the pattern is continuing. In four ongoing tenders for UG FSC bunkers, we found that these entities have bid together and cleared the technical evaluation. They are the only qualified bidders left in the race for the contracts.

The whistleblower who had initially approached us with preliminary information claimed there were at least 48 tenders won by these related entities from the Indian Army over the years. 

We could not independently verify this number because the government’s tendering platform allows only surface look at tenders and bidding parties for up to a year back.

The tendering platform is called Government e-Marketplace (GeM). The Indian Army itself put out at least 986 tenders between August 2025 and August 2026, worth hundreds of crores.

The GeM platform has facilitated government contracts worth Rs 8.69 lakh crore through at least 2.17 crore orders since its inception, the government claims.

The last time this tendering process made headlines was in May 2026, when 17-year-old student Sarthak Sidhant’s findings indicated that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) had relaxed key eligibility rules to favour one particular bidder.

The four related entities we found colluding to win defence contracts are Delhi-based Bharat Wire Mesh, Seco Machines, Kansal Wirenettings and Johripur Steel & Alloys. Except Bharat Wire Mesh, which is registered at Sarita Vihar, the other three organisations are registered at addresses clustered in northeast Delhi. 

We could establish that these two companies and two proprietorship firms, in control of one family bid together.

Competition Runs in the Family

We examined tenders of just two products procured by the Indian Army: Hesco Bastions and UG FSC Bunkers. 

In the single year of data available from August 2025 to August 2026, around 420 such tenders were issued, with individual contract values ranging between lakhs and crores. The government portal does not permit viewing tenders dating back more than a year.

In at least five of the tenders we traced, the Ministry of Defence received the lowest bids from businesses connected to the same family: a mother and her sons. The same family-backed four businesses appeared against one another in roughly one in ten of all the Hesco bastion tenders issued last year by the Army.

Publicly available financial records, including the audited balance sheets, GST records and corporate filings show members of the family owning and running the businesses, lending money across them, and, in some cases, the related entities themselves acknowledging that they are related to each other.

We sent detailed questions to the four organisations. None of them except one replied.

Mohit Gupta, director of Bharat Wire Mesh, responded once to ask for more time. Given the time, he responded to deny any wrongdoing. He said, “We do not accept that the mere participation of related entities in a tender, by itself, establishes collusion or improper bidding.”

He added, “We deny the allegations made against us and understand that a number of the complaints have already been examined and closed.” He claimed the complaints about his company had been made by an estranged family member.

To the specific cases of collusion we pointed out, he did not reply. Our questions to him and his full replies can be read here.

We also sent detailed questions to the Military Engineering Services (MES) in the Indian Army that is responsible for such procurements. They did not reply.

Government contracts are awarded through the Government E-Marketplace (GeM) portal and its rules include a basic “One Bid per Bidder” requirement. Businesses with the same persons behind them are not supposed to compete in the same tender.

If bidders try to hide such information, they can be black-listed from applying for government contracts for up to two years.

To prevent such potential for collusion, the Army, as the buyer, was responsible for ensuring genuine competition between bidders. The links between these entities could have been detected by matching information across records, including corporate filings and tax records.

The Reporters’ Collective could do so easily by examining these documents and connecting the common threads tying up the four organisations.

When Four Fronts Lead Back to One Family

These four entities have bid together for army tenders in different permutations and combinations, we found.

For example, in a December 2025  tender for Hesco bastions to be used by a regiment of the Indian Army located at Firozpur, three entities submitted the lowest bids: Seco Machines, Bharat Wire Mesh and Kansal Wirenettings. The names may be distinct, but the ownership of the three entities is not, we found.

One Ms Kaushlya Devi owns 95% of Seco Machines shares and is a director in the company. She is also the owner of Kansal Wirenettings as a sole proprietor. These two entities were under the full and direct control of Devi.

Her son, Mohit Gupta is a Director and owns 99% shares of the third related company Bharat Wire Mesh.

We looked at another tender for Hesco bastions. This was put out by the Indian Army for a regiment located at Amritsar.

Here the three lowest bidders were Seco Machines, Bharat Wire Mesh and Johripur Steel & Alloys.

Records examined by The Collective show Mohit Gupta had control over two of the bidding entities and had close personal and professional relationship to the third. He is the proprietor of Johripur Steel & Alloys and director at Bharat Wire Mesh. And his mother owned the third one. 

These four entities appear together in varied arrangements in all the tenders we examined. Kansal Wirenettings appeared as a bidder in fifteen tenders and it always did so along with Seco Machines or Bharat Wire Mesh. Often, they came out as the lowest three bidders.

Similarly, Johripur Steel & Alloys appeared twice in the tenders we examined, and on both occasions, it bid alongside Seco Machines or Bharat Wire Mesh, again emerging as one of the lowest bidders.

 A Promoter on Both Sides of the Competition

We found more evidence of Kaushlya Devi and Mohit Gupta working together to control the ‘related parties’ that were bidding in collusion to capture Indian Army contracts.

Devi was among the company’s original shareholders in Bharat Wire Mesh in 2016. In FY2023-24 she transferred her remaining 0.81 percent stake in the company to Ashish Gupta, Mohit Gupta’s brother and a fellow director.

Despite no longer holding shares, Bharat Wire Mesh continues to identify Devi as a promoter. The financial relationship between Devi and the company continued. As of March 2025, the company owed her Rs 75.31 lakh, making her its largest related-party lender.

This matters because Devi also owns Seco Machines, a company which appeared against Bharat Wire Mesh in at least twenty of the tenders we examined. The proof of relations between these organisations was also hiding in plain sight.

Bharat Wire Mesh’s audited accounts list Kansal Wirenettings and Johripur Steel & Alloys as businesses in which its ‘key management personnel,’ that is, directors Mohit Gupta and Ashish Gupta, have “significant influence.”

Under GeM’s rules, related bids that breach the “One Bid per Bidder” requirement can be disqualified, while undisclosed conflicts can also expose a seller to suspension or debarment.

The Pattern Continues

This illegal bidding pattern is continuing in ongoing Army tenders.

We found four ongoing tenders for UG FSC bunkers worth crores where Bharat Wire Mesh, Kansal Wirenettings and Seco Machines have bid together. All three had cleared the technical evaluation in three of these tenders, while in one, Seco Machines was disqualified and the other two qualified. By the time of publication of this investigation, these entities were the only ones left in the fray to put in the financial bids.

Army tenders first go through a technical evaluation, where vendors are checked for eligibility and compliance. Those that qualify are allowed to put in financial bids, where prices are compared and the lowest bidder wins.

Since in the four tenders we examined, Bharat Wire Mesh, Kansal Wirenettings and Seco Machines are the only qualified bidders for financial evaluation, this effectively leaves the Army now to choose between three related entities. The contracts have not yet been awarded, but whichever bidder quotes the lowest price, the order is already positioned to go to the family.

And that is how the pattern works even before a winner is declared.

The Indian Army put out more than 900 tenders between August 2025 and August 2026 on the GeM portal. We examined tenders for only two purchase items for this investigation and easily found organisations gaming the process. Data for army tenders for years before this are not available in the public domain for similar scrutiny.