 "Consortium partner approaches HC to quash TN's latest laptop scheme orders")
The company approached the Court against Electronics Corporation of Tamil Nadu Ltd (Elcot) and secretary of IT Department, Tamil Nadu, which looks after the scheme, and against Hewlet-Packard India Sales Pvt Ltd, Acer India (Pvt) Ltd and Lenovo (India)Pvt Ltd, which won the orders, according to the petition.
The court today admitted the petition, and fixed the next date of hearing in August.
ICMC Corporation, which is manufacturer of fertilisers and printed and packaging materials with its base in Chennai, was a level one supplier for the free laptop scheme, under which the Government of Tamil Nadu has been supplying free laptops to students, in phase two of the scheme.
The company alleges that the major laptop manufacturers has violated the tender norms by providing misleading information in the Phase III tenders. It also alleged that the Elcot, has considered and awarded the supply orders to the consortium companies of these firms for the latest fourth and fifth phase tenders for supply of 11 lakh laptops allegedly despite the consortium firm pointed out that these companies are ineligible to participate in the tender.
According to the company, HP, Acer and Lenovo were the successful bidders in the Phase III of the government scheme. The tender permits bids from a single company who is a manufacturer based in India or in consortium arrangement in which one of the consortium member should be a manufacturer and trading activity is not allowed.
While the three firms submitted the necessary documents with their manufacturing location and other details to bag the tenders, they traded the laptops from other manufacturers in China, it alleged. It also alleged that thus, the three companies provided misleading information and won the tender by suppressing the information that they were merely trading the products.
As per the tender conditions of Phase III tender, if the bidders provided misleading information, their security deposit had to be forfeited and as per the tender conditions for the fourth and fifth phase, if the security deposit of a successful bidder in the previous tenders is forfeited, it is ineligible to participate in the fresh set of tenders.
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The company alleged that despite the company taking the matter to the IT Department and Elcot, the security deposit was not forfeited, thus bringing losses of Rs 100 crore to the government.
The consortium approached the High Court for a remedy and received an interim order. However, Elcot and the government went ahead with the latest bidding and selected and issued orders to the three firms, it added.
In the fourth and fifth Phase tenders, the petitioner firm participated under a consortium arrangement with Haier Information Technology (Su Zhou) Co Ltd, China as their principal manufacturer. It alleged that HP, Acer and Lenovo participated as consortium partners with Chinese manufacturers Inventec (Chongqing), Tsinghua Tongfang and Wistron Corporation, respectively.
The technical bid for the tenders were opened on January 23, 2015.
It requested the Court to quash the award of the tender for the fourth and fifth Phases and an interim order to be passed restraining Elcot and the Secretary of IT Department, Govt of Tamil Nadu, who is also the Chairman of Elcot, from proceeding with the procurement of laptop computers till the disposal of the petition.
The senior counsel appeared for HP and the Advocate General of Tamil Nadu government argued against admission of the petition. The matter is posted to a date next month, now.