A view of High Court of Karnataka
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The High Court of Karnataka has ordered maintaining in abeyance all actions in respect of a short-term tender invited for the ₹8,005 crore Sharavathy Pumped Storage and Hydro Electric project in Shivamogga and Uttara Kannada district, and directed all of the events to take care of established order.
A Division Bench comprising Chief Justice N.V. Anjaria and Justice Krishna S. Dixit handed the interim order on March 11 on an enchantment filed by Larsen and Toubro Ltd., Mumbai.
The firm had questioned the March 6 order handed by a single decide, who had rejected its petition, by which the corporate had challenged that solely 21 days had been supplied for submitting bids for the tender as an alternative of minimal interval of 30 days for tenders exceeding ₹2 crore as per the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Rules, 2000.
Single decide’s order
Noticing that the rule empowers an authority, superior to the tender inviting authority, to cut back this minimal interval for causes to be recorded in writing, the one decide had stated that the Board of the Karnataka Power Corporation Ltd. Board had accredited short-term tender by giving solely 21 days to submit bids by recording in writing the rationale because the urgency implement the project because of scarcity of energy provide within the State.
However, when the Bench took up the listening to of firm’s enchantment on March 11, it pointed that KPCL, even earlier than the copy of the one decide’s order was made out there, had on March 11 issued Letter of Award of the project to one of many three bidders.
As the one decide’s order was not out there, the Bench stated:“all the actions pursuant to the Letter of Award dated March 11, 20-24 shall remain in abeyance and the parties shall maintain status quo till the next date of hearing.”
Claim and counter
L&T had contended that tenders of this nature would require minimal 90 days interval for preparation and the brief length for accepting tenders was mounted for the Sharavathy project “only to favour particular tenderers.”
However, it was argued on behalf of KPCL that “even today L&T has no eligibility to participate in the tender, as it has equipped with civil works and does not have experience in electro-mechanical and hydro-mechanical works. It is now wanting to partner with someone else but no one is coming forward. Therefore, the petitioner wants to stall the project.”