SHILLONG: The hurriedly called tender for operating lottery before the Assembly elections may land the Congress-led government in trouble at a time when the party is preparing for the 2018 poll battle.
Besides a case pending before the High Court of Meghalaya that found irregularities in the tender clauses and fixed the matter for hearing on January 24, one of the bidders has petitioned the tender committee citing that a certain influential person in the government is working hand in glove with a company, Gaming India Distributor Ltd and J. Geetha, thereby deviating from the norms.
It was on November 21 that the Cabinet chaired by Chief Minister Mukul Sangma gave nod to operate lottery after a gap of eight years.
Within nine days on November 30, the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) was issued, but the tender conditions were supplied only on December 7. Later, the date for receiving the bids was fixed at 12 noon on December 19 and to open the technical bids at 12.30 pm and then the financial bids at 2 pm.
When contacted, senior government officials dealing with the matter admitted that the tender was called in a hurry and added that there would have been caution and care.
However, they are helpless since the order came from the higher-ups.
The court had heard three petitions which had questioned clauses 7 and 8 in the tender which according to the petitioners are not only incompatible but are designed to extend undue advantage to some of the prospective bidders while causing prejudice to the other bona fide bidders.
Later, in an order on December 20, the court, quoting the Advocate General, said though the authorities concerned can receive the tenders, they cannot open them.
Letter of protest
According to the letter sent to the tender evaluation committee, one of the bidders raised objection to the eligibility of Gaming India Distributor Ltd. and J. Geetha.
The letter alleged that unlike various notice inviting tenders issued in connection with all forms of contract, in the NIT of November 30, the requirement of experience was dated back to anytime after 1998 instead of a specified period in the recent past and a specified minimum amount of turnover as an eligibility condition has been completely done away with.
“Such an unusual NIT could not have been designed for anyone except Gaming India Distributor Ltd and J. Geetha,” the letter said.
According to the letter, Gaming India Distributor Ltd. is a company that was incorporated only on November 2, 2010, and it received its Certificate of Commencement of Business on January 24, 2012. Its directors are N Jayamurugan and J Geetha and the company does not have any experience, infrastructure or knowledge about the business of lotteries since it has not been involved in such business at all, the letter said.
Overlooking such lack of credentials, the Government of Nagaland had sought to appoint it as one of its distributors and on a challenge being made in the Gauhati High Court, it was found that it did not have any credentials and accordingly, the court set aside such selection through an order on December 21, 2012.
According to the letter, Gaming India since then has sought to use some purported experience of one of its directors Geetha.
As far as Geetha is concerned, there were two judgments of the Gauhati High Court in connection with the Arunachal Pradesh State Lotteries – one on June 19, 2014, and the other on July 15, 2015, wherein the Gauhati High Court had held that all such claims of experience are on the basis of unregistered agreements and that her turnover in the recent past is admittedly nil.
Geetha, in various proceedings before the Gauhati High Court and the Sikkim High Court, has been making misleading and false statements like she had done lottery business in Arunachal Pradesh and Bhutan, the letter said.
The bidder further said it had sought information in this connection from the Government of Arunachal Pradesh and the Royal Government of Bhutan, who had responded in writing denying any association with Geetha. This establishes that she has been making false claims with regard to her experience.
The letter added that in a writ petition filed by Geetha challenging the eligibility conditions prescribed by the Nagaland Lottery Rules before the Gauhati High Court, Geetha had mentioned that she did not have any turnover after the financial year 2008-09.
In this context, the bidder in the letter urged the tender committee to take into account these relevant aspects, which had obviously not been disclosed by the Gaming India Distributor Company, while examining the tenders so submitted by the company and to reject the technical bids.
According to the bidder, it believes that a failure to reject the technical bids would be opposed to public interest and the same will amount to a fraud of unimaginable proportions being committed not only on the Meghalaya Government, but also on the people of Meghalaya at large.
