KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) on Monday restrained the provincial authorities from finalising the tendering process for a multibillion-rupee project of reconstructing schools affected by floods in the province.

A single-judge bench headed by Justice Mahmood A. Khan also issued notices to the secretaries of the education & literacy and health departments, managing director of the Sindh Public Procurement & Regulatory Authority, director general of the school education and other respondents as well as advocate general for Nov 19.

Saeed Ahmed and two others filed a lawsuit in the SHC, submitting that they were duly licensed contractors enrolled with the Pakistan Engineering Council in category “C-4” and entitled to participate into the projects having construction cost of Rs100 million.

The plaintiffs impugned the notice inviting tenders (NITs) issued on Oct 16 and Oct 18 by the DG school education for construction/reconstruction of the schools damaged in the 2022 floods and rains across Sindh.

Plaintiffs claim committee running process formed in violation of law

Representing the plaintiffs, Malik Altaf Hussain argued that the project in question was to be executed by the provincial education authorities across Sindh after successful competition, if any, and sponsored by the federal government.

He submitted that a procurement committee was constituted by the secretary education department and notifying the DG school education as its chairman while the deputy project director (superintending engineer) education works circle-II and the executive engineer works & services department to act as members.

The counsel also asserted that the composition of committee raised many illegalities and made in violation of the very spirit and governing law of Sindh Public Procurement Act, 2009 as well as Sindh Public Procurement Rules, 2010 (SPPR).

He also contended that the plaintiffs were essentially impugning the artificial amalgamation of various projects in a single unit as the defendants in a highly technical and mala fide manner had clubbed values of all the proposed procurement and such aggregations had severely affected the values of the project which was actually comprising of eight units.

The lawyer for the plaintiffs also maintained that instead of mentioning the individual value of such units, a collective value had been mentioned and therefore, the plaintiffs and others had been ousted from the competition by introducing such artificial condition.

He asserted that in order to favour the blue-eyed persons even various districts had been amalgamated. For instance, package No. 42 had been related to districts Central, Malir and East of Karachi division and therefore, the value of contract had surged to Rs224.262 million, he added.

He also argued that the total value of the project had been calculated at Rs12.338 billion and thus, the same must have been placed before the Central Development Working Committee, but it had not been done.

He contended that the requirement of splitting and packaging as provided in Rule 12 of the SPPR had been violated by discrimination restricted under Rule 44 as grouping had been made in violation of the earlier practice of the defendants.

Therefore, the counsel maintained that the devolved method of procurement i.e., the national competitive bidding should have been opted, but the NITs had been floated through national newspapers and thus, the procurement method as adopted by the defendants was patently illegal and liable to be set aside.

After a preliminary hearing, the bench in its order said: “Be that as it may, let notice be issued to the defendants as well as AG Sindh for 19.11.2024 and till said date tender process is not be concluded”.

Published in Dawn, November 12th, 2024