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Informist, Tuesday, Nov. 19, 2024

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court on Tuesday set aside Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.'s decision to rescind a purchase order from Millennium Automation Pvt. Ltd. for the supply and annual maintenance of information technology hardware and related software for the central public sector undertaking's centralised mobile billing system and probe-based internet protocol detail record management solution. 

 

"Upon evaluating BSNL's actions and averments on the touchstone of reasonableness and fairness, it becomes amply clear that BSNL, being a state within the meaning of Article 12 of the Constitution of India, has failed to fulfil its responsibility of acting fairly in rescinding the impugned purchase order," the court said. 

 

The sanctity of the tendering process must be zealously guarded, and any deviation must be met with appropriate consequences, the court said. Allegations as serious as collusion or malpractice cannot rest on conjecture or the mere perception of overconfidence, it said. There must be tangible evidence to substantiate such charges, especially when they serve as the basis for rescinding a purchase order, said the court. "In the absence of any concrete material to support BSNL's claims, the argument of compromised integrity lacks merit, and cannot be sustained. The impugned communication, along with the new grounds introduced to support the impugned rescission, are unreasonable, arbitrary and unsustainable," the court said.

 

Millennium Automation had emerged as the lowest bidder in the tender issued by BSNL on Jul. 20, 2023, and the state-owned telecommunication operator issued an advance purchase order expressing its intent to consider Millennium Automation for the final contract following which Millennium Automation complied with the terms and conditions and submitted bank guarantees.

 

Millennium Automation placed orders with its vendors for equipment worth more than INR 1 billion and intimated BSNL that they would tentatively start delivering equipment from Jul. 30, 2024. Subsequently, Millennium Automation submitted the list of its equipment suppliers and the status of their clearance from the Trusted Telecom Portal of the National Security Council Secretariat. However, BSNL issued a communication on Aug. 6, rescinding the purchase order, on account of alleged default in clauses of the purchase order.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Saji George Titus

 

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