ISLAMABAD, May 20: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday summoned the director general Immigration and passports in a petition challenging the award of a tender.

A French company moved the court against the award of the tender for supply of laminate patches for the passports to an American firm.

Sameer Baig, a representative of Reliance International, through his counsel Salman Akram Raja, alleged that the interior ministry had awarded billions of rupees contract to their favourite firm.

The counsel also alleged before the Islamabad High Court Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui that the firm was providing substandard laminate patches for the passport which lacked security protocol.

The petition cited interior secretary, director general immigration and passport, project director machine readable passport (MRP) and director MRP as respondents.

The counsel alleged that the process of awarding contract was also not fair.

According to the petition, the DGIP on February 19, 2013 invited Requests for Proposals (RFP) from the pre-qualified firms including the petitioner company.

The petition also alleged that the passport office authorities violated several clauses of procurement rules to clear the way for awarding the contract to their favorite company.

Investigations by the senior officials of the ministry of interior and the federal investigation agency (FIA) revealed that the senior officials of the interior ministry and the directorate general immigration and passport were responsible for the deliberate delay in awarding the tender for the procurement of laminate patches.

According to the report, certain high officials in the interior ministry wanted to create pressure by creating backlog of hundreds of thousand passports to get relaxation in the procurement rules.

The report stated that “there has been a considerable delay in the procurement of lamination patches. Prima facie, the delay is attributable to both DGIP and ministry of interior.”