PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Friday directed the elementary and secondary education department to halt action on a tender floated for the bulk procurement of school furniture made of sheesham wood.

A bench consisting of Justice Shakeel Ahmad and Justice Mohammad Naeem Anwar issued the order after holding preliminary hearing into a petition of local businessman Hayat Shah, who challenged the tender floated by the directorate of elementary and secondary education on May 19, 2021, for the procurement of furniture, insisting the felling of sheehsam trees in large numbers for the purpose will have severe negative impact on the environment.

It issued notices to the director (elementary and secondary education) and director general of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) seeking their formal response to the petition within a fortnight.

The petitioner requested the court to declare the impugned tender illegal and against the letter and spirit of the Environmental Protection Act, 2014.

Petitioner claims felling of sheesham trees to harm environment

He sought the court’s orders for the EPA DG to carry out a detailed environmental impact assessment of the proposed furniture procurement and suggest environment-friendly alternatives.

The respondents in the petition are the directorate of elementary and secondary education through its director, EPA through its DG, secretary of the elementary and secondary department, and the provincial government through its chief secretary.

Barrister Ibrahim Khan Afridi appeared for the petitioner and said his client, also a social worker, was aggrieved by the impugned tender floated by the directorate through an advertisement in a newspaper on May 19, 2021.

He said the advertisement had invited bids from manufacturers and authorised dealers from across the country for the supply of various goods.

The lawyer pointed out that according to the standard bidding documents available on the official website of the directorate and KP Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, the specification of the required school furniture, included teacher chairs, table chairs and teacher tables, which should be made of seasoned sheesham wood.

He said the document further revealed that the directorate wanted all that furniture to be made of Grade-I sheesham wood suggesting that the wood should have less than seven to eight per cent moisture content.

The counsel added that the last date for submitting bids was June 3 indicating that the procurement process was already in its final stages and the successful bidders would soon be working to make supplies entailing the felling of sheesham tress at a monumental level in a very short span of time.

He said the environmental impact of the proposed procurement would be immeasurable.

The lawyer claimed that act of the directorate would result in the felling of 30,000-40,000 sheesham trees to make around 1.2-1.3 million furniture items, including chairs and tables, and would take a heavy toll on the environment.

He said the EPA had miserably failed to take notice of the issue and there was nothing on record to suggest that it had made any plausible effort to apprise the directorate of the environmental cost to be levied as a result of the mass procurement.

Published in Dawn, July 31st, 2021