Madras High Court warns Tangedco over coal import tender

The Madras High Court on Thursday warned the Tamil Nadu Generation and Distribution Corporation (Tangedco) that it might not hesitate to quash a ₹1,330 crore price tender notification issued by it on February 8 for provide of 20 lakh tonnes of imported steam coal of any origin if it finds proof of any foul-play.

The courtroom permitted a public curiosity litigant to file further supplies in assist of his allegations and directed Tangedco to be prepared with its response by subsequent week.

Interim order

The First Division Bench of Chief Justice Sanjib Banerjee and Justice Senthilkumar Ramamoorthy, in an interim order, acknowledged that it was straightforward for anybody to trace at a corrupt follow and lift an environment of suspicion.

However, it was a very totally different factor to provide exhausting details earlier than the courtroom to determine the costs.

In the current case, the constant follow adopted by Tangedco of inviting bids for prime worth tenders at a brief discover actually arouses suspicion, the judges stated.

Further, observing that public sector models have to be given a level of elbow room to operate freely, the judges stated, however, such a play within the joints couldn’t be used as an excuse by the federal government institutions to run riot and trigger loss to the general public exchequer or permit a bunch of individuals to profit unduly from authorities tenders. The judges additionally took severe word of Tangedco having come below antagonistic discover of the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) in 2017.

The PIL petition had been filed by C. Selvaraj, 70, a retired assistant engineer of the Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) who had additionally served as basic secretary of a TNEB engineers affiliation for a few years. Senior Counsel K.M. Vijayan, assisted by E. Vijay Anand, appeared on his behalf and insisted upon ordering a joint probe by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) and Directorate of Vigilance and Anti-Corruption (DVAC) into the alleged rip-off in import of coal for thermal energy stations.

Mr. Vijayan instructed the courtroom that Tangedco had initially given simply 15 days’ time for submission of bids, for provide of 20 lakh tonnes of imported coal, as towards the requisite minimal period of 30 days. When it was challenged by a non-public firm earlier than a single decide of the High Court, Tangedco issued a corrigendum and prolonged the interval by 15 extra days. Further, the tender clauses had been authored cleverly to favour participation of solely overseas suppliers, he claimed.

Referring to the requirement that the bidders ought to possess export licences issued by the nation from the place the coal could be procured, he stated no Indian provider might be anticipated to be in possession of export licence from overseas nations. He additionally stated that Tangedco had a chequered historical past of getting precipitated enormous loss to the general public exchequer by importing steam coal at excessive prices to run home thermal energy stations and due to this fact it shouldn’t be allowed to go forward with the current import. He identified that the CAG, in its 2017 report, had discovered that an avoidable expenditure of ₹746.13 crore had been incurred by Tangedco because it had not invited and evaluated the bids for import of coal on variable worth technique. The report had additionally acknowledged that the failure to independently confirm the correctness of gross calorific worth furnished by the provider resulted in undue profit to the extent of ₹813.68 crore to the provider.