Hyderabad: The Hyderabad High Court on Thursday directed the AP government to allow the members of the Telangana Web Offset Printers Association to participate in the tender process for the printing and publishing of textbooks from Classes I to X.
A division bench comprising Justice V. Ramasubramanian and Justice J. Uma Devi was hearing a petition moved by the Association represented by its president D. Vinod Kumar as lunch motion, challenging the AP government’s debarring printers located in Hyderabad from participating in the tender.
Deepak Bhattacharjee, senior counsel appearing for the petitioner, told the court that the AP government issued a notification on February 2, 2017 inviting tenders for printing of textbooks in four colours. The last date for submission of tender is February 27.
Mr Bhattacharjee brought to the notice of the court that the government set the condition that printers and publishers registered in AP alone were eligible to participate in the tenders.
He contended that the members of the petitioner’s association were eligible to participate in the tenders as Section 5 of the AP Reorganisation Act 2014 stipulates that Hyderabad is the common capital for the states of AP and TS for period of 10 years.
When the bench sought the response from AP advocate-general D. Srinivas, he submitted that the government has given preference to printers and publishers of the state to avoid delay.
While directing the government to allow members of the petitioner association to participate in tenders, the bench issued notices to the state government and other respondents and posted the case to February 27.
