Madras high court orders status quo on tender process floated by government

Chennai: Madras high court has ordered status quo on the tender process floated by Tamil Nadu government for purchase of infant weighing machines for government maternity hospitals.

Justice R. Mahadevan, before whom a petition filed by an Ahmedabad based company came up for hearing on Wednesday, has directed the authorities to maintain status quo for three weeks.

The company stated that on April 19 social welfare and nutritious meal programme department sought the contact details of the petitioner company for supplying weighing scales. Subsequently, on June 21 the department floated e-tender for the procurement and the last date of online submission was fixed as July 9.

The petitioner stated that the terms, among others, stipulated that the bidder must have minimum five years of experience in working with government.
The portal in which the tender was floated had a limitation of uploading only documents up to maximum size of 2MB. As a result, the company was unable to upload documents to prove its experience.

The company was disqualified from participating in the tender and a Mumbai based Nitiraj Engineers Limited has been declared as the lowest bidder. The authorities have failed to note that Nitiraj Engineers obtained manufacturing licence for infant weighing scales only in 2018.

Stating that the Nitiraj Engineers does not possess required experience even for a year the petitioner wanted the court to quash the disqualification order against the company and open the bid submitted by it.