HC holds BSNL's GSM contracts
The Delhi High Court, on Thursday, directed BSNL against awarding contracts to Ericsson and Nokia for its GSM project till November 16, the next date for hearing of the case.
By TNN |
NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court, on Thursday, directed BSNL against awarding contracts to Ericsson and Nokia for its GSM project till November 16, the next date for hearing of the case.
The court, however, has given the PSU a go ahead to continue processing the shortlisted bids of the two companies for 45.5m GSM lines, for which it had floated a tender.
After the hearing, the Delhi HC adjourned the case as Motorola’s counsel AS Chandiok had requested the court to give the US-based company more time to evaluate the BSNL’s reply. Motorola had approached the Delhi HC last month after BSNL had disqualified its bid on grounds that the US major had failed to meet the technical and commercial criteria laid down in the tender document.
BSNL, in its reply, reiterated Motorola was disqualified as it failed to meet the techno-commercial factors specified by the tender. Citing the report of Committee for Evaluation of Tender (CET), comprising experts, BSNL said, “The petitioner (Motorola) does not fulfil the necessary techno-commercial standards prescribed by the tender document. The petitioner failed to even meet the eligibility criteria of the tender.”
The tender conditions stipulated successful bidders have a profit earning track record for the last two years. Motorola has failed to meet the requirement as it suffered a loss of about Rs 37 crore in ’04-05.
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Additionally, the tender guidelines also specify that only companies who have successfully installed similar equipment on a minimum of 20m GSM lines, globally, can bid for the BSNL project. Motorola has failed to meet even this criterion, the BSNL affidavit said.BSNL told the Delhi HC that Motorola has shown that it meets the 20m criteria only for the BSS components of the network, which provides all the transmission and control functions necessary for radio coverage of a service area.
However, Motorola has not been able to prove it has installed the NSS component, which establishes calls between the caller and the called subscriber on 20m lines. Instead, the company provided a figure of 3.2m, which led to its disqualification.
Additionally, it has not submitted the user certificate for equipments supplied to it by Lucent Technologies, its partner, said the BSNL affidavit. The tender guideline had stipulated that bidders submit user certificate for outsourced components.
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