AP HC judge to head panel for scrutinising govt tenders

Justice B Siva Sankara Rao of the Andhra Pradesh High Court was on Wednesday appointed by the state government as the head of the State Judicial Commission to scrutinise public tenders for all infrastructure works of Rs 100 crore or more before awarding contracts.

State Principal Secretary (Infrastructure, Investments and Industry Department) Rajat Bhargava issued an order to this effect.

The appointment has been made on the recommendation of the High Court acting Chief Justice C Praveen Kumar in line with the AP Infrastructure (Transparency through Judicial Preview) Act, 2019, that mandates putting any government tender for infrastructure works of Rs 100 crore and more for judicial scrutiny before awarding the contracts.

In all 25 sectors like roads and bridges, urban development (including smart cities), health, ports, airports, water supply, inland water transport, telecommunications, highways and power, including projects under public-private partnership initiative, would be covered under the new law.

Tender norms and specifications related to infrastructure works would be first referred to the judge, who would in turn place them in public domain for seeking objections and suggestions in seven days.

After that, the judge, with the aid of technical experts, would scrutinise the tender norms after looking into the objections and suggestions and suggest modifications, if any, to the government.

The judges recommendations would be binding on the government, according to the legislation enacted in the Legislature during the Budget session on July 26.

While anything done under the new legislation could not be challenged in court, the Act says, "It shall be open to the judge to devise an appropriate procedure or mechanism to deal with scurrilous or malicious attempts to obstruct the process of preview or thereafter.