High Court puts rider on RGUHS tender

Says further proceedings would be subject to the final order on a PIL petition

The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday put a rider on a process initiated by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) to procure hardware of a particular specification for end-to-end computerisation at a cost of several crores of rupees even as the required software is still under development.

A vacation Division Bench comprising Justice Ravi Malimath and Justice John Michael Cunha, in an interim order, made it clear that all further proceedings on the tender process initiated by the RGUHS on February 13, 2017 would be subject to the final order on a PIL petition filed by Silicon Educational and Charitable Trust.

The petitioner contends that the tender process violates provisions of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act. Also, it claims, the university is going against the advice given on May 3, 2017 by the State government asking the former not to proceed with procurement of hardware till completion of development of software by the National Informatics Centre.

The petitioner claimed that the university had on May 11, 2017 opened the financial bids and it appears that three companies had quoted prices in the range of Rs. 66 crore to Rs. 107 crore though the cost of the required hardware may not exceed Rs. 10 crore. The vice-chancellor of the university is hastily trying to complete the tender process before expiry of his tenure in July, the petitioner alleged.