High Court's intervention sought in 'irregular' tender allotments

As the local bodies government and municipal corporation (MC) have allegedly failed to take necessary action against the officials concerned for accepting "doubtful" solvency certificates by firms that were allotted tenders for construction of flats for slum dwellers, the complainant has now filed a petition in the Punjab and Haryana high court (HC) once again.

The HC has issued notice to the parties concerned for hearing that is scheduled to be held on July 3. Earlier, a city resident, Kuldeep Singh Khaira, had filed a petition in the high court in 2012, following which the court directed the local bodies department to pass reasoned order. However, when no action was taken by the authorities, he then filed a contempt petition in 2013.

Khaira had raised questions over the alleged nexus between the contractors and the MC into the allotment of tenders without verifying the documents properly.

In November 2014, the MC had also issued show-cause notices to some officials concerned who had later submitted their replies. However, the necessary action was still pending in this regard as per sources.

"The local bodies department has informed me via letter that they had written to the MC in 2013 to fix the responsibility of officials concerned regarding the solvency certificates but MC had not informed about it to the local bodies department. The HC has revived proceedings of COCP No. 1908 of 2013 once again,"he said.

The project for construction of flats for slum dwellers in Dhandari, Giaspura and Mundian under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM) was started in 2008.

After getting the information under the Right to Information (RTI) Act, Khaira alleged that the work for construction of flats was awarded to different firms without proper verification of credentials of the solvency certificates.

The information obtained under the RTI had revealed that a firm had submitted a photocopy of the solvency certificate of Rs5 crore that was obtained by it from the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority (PUDA) for other construction work. He had also raised doubt over the solvency certificates that were submitted by two other firms.

It is worth mentioning here that the solvency certificates are issued by a bank declaring the financial status of a firm. Moreover, while making a financial bid, it is necessary for firms to produce the latest certificate in the name of the agency that is issuing tenders.

MC additional commissioner Ghanshyam Thori said that the officials concerned had replied to the show cause notices. "We are looking into the matter,"he added.