LAHORE: The Lahore High Court on Friday directed the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) to hear the grievances of a Turkish company about the bidding process for a project of procurement of design, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of double circuit transmission line from Tarbela to Islamabad west substation.

SA-RA Energy Construction Trade & Industry Inc Turkey filed a petition challenging a decision of an appellate tribunal of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) issued on Sept 21, 2022, wherein an appeal by the petitioner was dismissed on the ground of limitation.

Petitioner’s counsel Advocate Mansoor Usman Awan argued that the respondent tribunal while giving its findings on the point of limitation of 30 days ignored that Aug 8 and 9 were gazetted Ashura holidays (Monday and Tuesday) which could not be counted while calculating the limitation.

He said the appeal was filed the very next day, therefore, the petitioner had the protection under Section 4 of the Limitation Act 1908. The counsel asked the court to set aside the impugned order for being illegal.

He further asked the court to declare that the award of the contract for the project to respondent company namely M/s Netracon was in violation of the World Bank guidelines, the 2004 rules, as well as the prequalification documents and the contract can no longer be performed by the respondent.

He asked the court to also order the NTDC to consider the petitioner for the award of the contract, being the current lowest evaluated responsive bidder, as the respondent company had been declared as non-responsive in the impugned order by the tribunal.

Asked about the findings of the tribunal on merit, the counsel said the findings on merits were in favour of the petitioner and the consequence of these findings was that the NTDC, being the procuring agency, had to reinitiate the process of bidding.

Assistant Attorney General Syed Sajjad Haider Rizvi stated before the court that the tribunal’s decision on merits was for re-initiation of the process, therefore, the petitioner still had an option to participate in the fresh bidding process.

Disposing of the petition, Justice Shahid Jamil Khan directed the NTDC to afford an opportunity of hearing to the petitioner/company and also consider the request for initiation of the bidding process in accordance with the decision of the tribunal.

“If the decision is against the request, reasons, in writing, be communicated to the petitioner within 10 days,” the judge said in the order.

Published in Dawn, November 19th, 2022