SHC dismisses plea for staying construction of 12 courts at its old annexe

The Sindh High Court dismissed a stay application of a contractor with regard to the construction work of conversion of the old annex building of the high court into 12 courts.

The plaintiff WSKB had challenged the decision of the procurement committee of the executive engineer works and service department with regard to awarding a contract to the other defendant for the conversion of the old annex building of the SHC into 12 courts, including civil and electric works.

During pendency of the case, the court was informed that the contract had in fact been executed by the procuring agency in favour of the defendant company on December 12, 2023 before the filing of the suit and the matter pending before the review committee was in fact the plaintiff’s appeal under Rule 32 of the SPP Rules, which has been dismissed by a decision on January 23, 2025, and as the suit presently stands, there is no prayer against those two acts.

The plaintiff’s counsel said that he was not aware of the execution of the contract at the time he filed suit. He submitted that in any case, since the plaintiff had already filed a complaint under Rule 31(3), SPP Rules to the Complaint Redressal Committee, the procuring agency was prohibited by Rule 31(6) from executing the contract until a decision on such complaint.

Regarding the dismissal order passed by the review committee, he submitted that the plaintiff reserves the right to challenge the same as that is an event after the suit.

A high court single bench headed by Justice Adnan Iqbal Chaudhry, after hearing the counsel and perusal of the record, observed that tenders for the project were invited by the procuring agency by publications on October 24 and 25, 2024, for submitting bids as per single stage–two envelope procedure prescribed in the SPP Rules.

The court observed that at the meeting of the procurement committee and the bidders held on December 4, 2024 when financial proposals were opened, the defendant emerged as the bidder who had quoted the lowest price and the price quoted by the plaintiff was second-lowest. It further observed that the difference between the two was of Rs4,044,467; therefore, the procurement committee recommended that the contract be awarded to the defendant.

The SHC further observed that other argument advanced by the plaintiff’s counsel is that the procurement committee did not disclose the bid evaluation report and the technical evaluation report prior to opening financial proposals on December 4, 2024, thus implying malafides.

The procuring agency counsel submitted that those reports were duly uploaded on the website of SPPRA within the time stipulated in the Rule 45 of the SPP Rules. The court observed that admittedly the bid evaluation report and the technical evaluation report were made public on December 9, 2024 and are on the record, and the plaintiff’s counsel is not able to point out anything from those reports that could imply malafides or a material violation of the law in awarding the contract to the defendant company.

It stated that the plaintiff does not make out a prima facie case for the grant of a temporary injunction and the balance of convenience is also in favour of continuity of the public project therefore stay application is dismissed.