The Delhi High Court has stayed granting of tenders by the Delhi Development Authority’s (DDA’s) horticulture department in keeping up more than 700 parks across Delhi, prosecuting the organization for supposed defilement and malpractice.
A divisional bench of Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Rekha Palli noted, “It appears that the way these contracts are structured and worked out, there is serious malpractice and, possibly, corruption involved,”
The Petition has been filed by Contractor Sanjay Sharma seeking direction to nullify tenders given by the department of horticulture regarding park, lawns, tree plantation maintenance in parks located at Dwarka Sector 19.
Senior Advocate Sudhanshu Batra appearing for the petitioner submitted that “since April 2020, the respondent has floated about 300 other tenders of the same kind, where the L1 bidders have quoted only the amount equivalent to the minimum wages payable to the workers to be engaged by them, without factoring in other expenses that they would incur, much less any element of profit.”
The petition filed through Advocate Mohit Gupta further stated that because of the flawed statement of taking the minimum wages in organizing a tender for the maintenance parks, the bidders had wound up citing similar sums. It had said that since the number of workers needed is seven, the cost is coming as same for all the project workers.
However, the bench noted that “…there is serious malpractice and, possibly, corruption involved, otherwise we see no reason as to why the contractors would be interested in securing and performing these contracts by quoting only the minimum wage payable to the requisite number of employees that the contractor must deploy to carry out the work awarded in terms of the tenders.”
The bench has directed the Central Vigilance Commission to check and improve the system and sought a reply over the aforesaid issue. The Court has further directed the Delhi Development Authority to file a counter-affidavit and listed the matter for March 8.
Read the order here;
1613209390594-2021-India Legal Bureau
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