HC stays suspension of 4 SEs

WERE SUSPENDED BY NAVJOT SIDHU ON JULY 6 FOR AWARDING TENDERS TO SOME CONTRACTORS ON SINGLE BIDS

JALANDHAR/CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana high court has stayed suspension of four superintending engineers (SEs) of Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Amritsar municipal corporations.

The officials include SE (building and roads) Jalandhar MC Kulvinder Singh, SE of Ludhiana MC Dharam Singh along with PK Sharma and Pawan Goyal. They were suspended by local bodies minister Navjot Singh Sidhu on July 6 for awarding tenders to some contractors in single bids.

All the four SEs had moved to high court challenging state government’s orders stating that they had followed the notification issued by the government in 2011.

Seeking response of state government, the high court bench of justice PB Bajanthri ordered stay on the suspension till next date of hearing.

Their counsels, senior advocate BS Patwalia and Sehajbir Singh argued that in the tenders in question, the state had saved crores. The entire action suffers from “mala fide” as petitioners were “virtually condemned” in public hearings and held “guilty” in front of media. The order was passed under political considerations, they submitted.

This action has been taken without highlighting the fact that out of total number 496 group tenders only 200 were single bids, which resulted in savings of crores for State and most of the works had already been executed, the court was told.

As per February 2011 instructions, a tender for which only one bid is received can also be accepted provided that the tendering process is through e-tendering and the bid received is within the estimated value, they had argued. The e-tendering process was introduced in state local bodies department in 2010.

While suspending the SEs, Sidhu had said out of work orders of ₹800 crore, ₹500 crore were allotted on a single bid. The SEs were suspended for not following the procedure and municipal corporation laws in allotting civil works in Amritsar, Ludhiana and Jalandhar MCs, Sidhu had said.

The vigilance team of the local bodies department had found that large number of work orders were awarded on single bids in MC Amritsar. The scope of probe was extended to MC of Ludhiana and Jalandhar where civil work orders for 2016 were inspected. Among major deviations, the MC Act, 1976, was violated wherein the house resolution was must for any work order above ₹25,000 while the approval of F&C committee of respective MC was also not taken, it was alleged.