SHILLONG: Faulty tender process has delayed the government’s plan to start lottery in the state after a gap of eight years.
Three petitions were heard by the High Court of Meghalaya on Tuesday.
The petitions had questioned the notice inviting tender issued on November 30 for appointment of distributors of Meghalaya State Lotteries and the tender conditions issued on December 7.
According to the petitioners, the clauses 7 and 8 of the tender conditions are not only incompatible but are designed to extend undue advantage to some of the prospective bidders while causing prejudice to other bona fide bidders.
According to clause 7, the bidder should be bona fide lottery distributor/agent/stockist of sound financial standing having sufficient ) experience of at least three years in the lottery business after the introduction of the Lottery (Regulation) Act, 1998.
“The experience and financial standing of directors/shareholders/partners/proprietors and others shall also be considered for allocating and evaluating the experience and financial standing of the bidder. The same shall be supported by audited financial statement for last three years duly certified by a registered chartered accountant,” the clause said.
The clause 8 states that the net worth of the bidder should not be less than Rs 10 crore as on date and for the preceding three years. “The net worth of sole proprietor/directors on board/partners/shareholders shall be considered for allocating and evaluating the net worth of the bidder. The same should be supported by net worth certificate as duly certified by the chartered accountant who audited the financial statement.”
As per the petitioner, NV Marketing Pvt Ltd, though the state authorities had invited bids from operators with three years’ experience, the competition is unfairly confined to only those bidders who have a net worth of not less than Rs 10 crore. In that regard too, the net worth of even the directors or shareholders of a company would be taken into consideration without regard to the net worth of the company itself.
Another submission was that the authorities have resorted to another unfair practice by not specifying a benchmark as regards the turnover, again leaving a wide scope for arbitrariness in the tender evaluation.
The petitioner said in Meghalaya, the state lottery had not been operational for about eight years and if at all it needs to be made operational now, the distributors could only be appointed by way of a fair and non-discriminatory procedure.
Bids to be examined in 90 minutes
It was also alleged that though the notice inviting tender was issued on November 30, the tender conditions were supplied only on December 7 and on the other hand, the respondents proposed to receive the bids by 12 noon on December 19 and to open the technical bids at 12.30 pm on the same day itself and then, financial bids at 2 pm.
This means that the “mammoth exercise of evaluation of technical bids is proposed to be completed within a matter of 90 minutes; and it appears that the respondents are attempting to rush through the matter”.
While the court has expressed prima facie reservations for clauses 7 and 8 with reference to the submissions made on behalf of the petitioner, the Additional Senior Government Advocate K Khan sought for some time to respond to the matter.
He later submitted that the authorities concerned were willing to revisit the tender conditions and to take necessary rectification measures.
Khan also said that though the authorities will receive the tenders, they will not be opened.
Taking note of the submissions at the request of Khan, the matter was listed on Wednesday for hearing.
