HC gets a 'tender' scar

T'PURAM: Marikar Motors Ltd, which challenged the purchase of 11 luxury cars by the Registrar-General of the High Court without inviting proper tender, said though the dealers had offered to give a diesel model of the Lancer car or a combination of both petrol or diesel models, the High Court refused to accept the offer.The explanation was that the diesel car was costlier by around Rs 1 lakh than the petrol variant (ex-showroom price of Lancer petrol model is Rs 6.49 lakh). The tender process was thus stalled.The High Court authorities obtained permission from the Home Department the next day to change the model and purchase Mitsubishi Cedia cars, the ex-showroom price of which is Rs 8.30 lakh."It is true that we gave permission to change the model. That doesn’t mean norms in the purchase manual can be violated," said a top official in the secretariat. The total estimate for the purchase was increased by around Rs 10 lakh following the change of model.Instead of inviting fresh tenders, the High Court gave a bulk purchase order to Geo Motors for supplying 11 Cedia vehicles. On the last working day of the financial year, Geo Motors billed 11 luxury cars to the High Court."Though the HC office told us that any change of model will be intimated to all participating dealers, we came to know that a purchase order, GO/RT 1067/Home dated March 31, 2008, was released to one of the dealers for Mitsubishi Cedia petrol vehicles other than the invited model and numbers in tender. Considering the same, we kindly request you to look into the matter," said a complaint addressed to the Registrar-General by the assistant sales manager of Marikar Motors.Copies of the complaint have been received at the offices of the Chief Secretary, Additional Chief Secretary (Home) and Finance Principal Secretary.High Court Registrar-General S S Satheesachandran said the vehicles were purchased but would not comment further. On the complaint from Marikar Motors, he said it was withdrawn by the complainant.Representatives of Marikar Motors too refused to speak about the complaint. "We had sent a letter to the Registrar-General but we withdrew it after a couple of days owing to technical reasons," said a top employee of Marikar Motors. He was not ready to explain the technical reasons for withdrawing the complaint.
Thursday May 8 2008 07:11 IST
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