- High Court order to Jagdulla Company to do according to the law
The Patan High Court has refused to grant an interim order in the disputed contract of the 106 MW Jagdulla Hydropower Company to be constructed by the government in Dolpa. In the writ petition filed by Siu Infrastructure and High Himalaya Hydro Construction JV against Jagdulla's bid evaluation committee, the Patan High Court has already opened the financial and technical proposal of the project, so there is no need to issue an interim order and it has been ordered to do it according to the law.
Siu Infrastructure and High Himalaya Hydro Construction JV filed a writ claiming that the evaluation committee of Jagdulla Company disqualified their company's technical proposal as being contrary to Rule 61, 62 of the Public Procurement Rules, 2064 . It is also mentioned in the order of the High Court that Siu Infrastructure and High Himalaya Hydro Construction JV were disqualified during the technical evaluation and will be declared when the final decision of the case is made.
'While the technical proposal of the petitioner JV is essentially effective, the matter raised by the petitioner and the other matters requested by the petitioner that the technical proposal of the petitioner has been judged to be 'non-responsive', it seems that the final decision of the presented case will be decided and the financial and technical proposal of the mentioned project has been opened, and the interim order should not be issued as per the request . It will be done according to the law," the order said.
Since the amount received from the bidders in the financial proposal is public information during the evaluation of the technical proposal, the entire procurement process is unreasonable, and on the basis of that, the notice issued for the evaluation of the technical proposal and the opening of the financial proposal on that basis, and requesting an interim order to keep the entire procurement process as it is, Siu Infrastructure and High Himalaya Hydro Construction JV filed a writ on May 22.
The single bench of Judge Tank Prasad Gurung issued a show cause order against Jagdulla Hydropower Company on May 23. The court also ordered to submit a written response within 15 days to the writ petition filed against the Jagdulla Hydropower Company and the bid evaluation committee of the company. Soon after, on May 30, the High Court handed over the entire file related to the disputed contract of Jagdulla hydropower project. The bench of Justices Khadanand Tiwari and Prakash Kharel ordered the Jagdulla Hydropower Company to bring the entire file regarding the bid evaluation of the disputed contract to the bench.
Jagdulla Hydropower Company issued a notice to open financial proposals on May 9, saying that Jiangxi Construction Engineering (Group) Corporation (China) and ANK Construction Nepal JV and Sino Hydro Corporation are eligible. Jiangxi Construction Engineering (Group) Corporation (China) and ANK Construction Nepal JV will get the contract after receiving the lowest price from the financial proposal opened on May 24. According to sources related to the company, Sino Hydro paid 15.7 billion rupees including value added tax (VAT) and Jiangxi and ANK JV paid 13.73 billion rupees. The company said that the received financial offer is being evaluated.
Jagdulla Limited called for the contract process of the project for the second time on 6 January 2081 . Earlier on May 20, 2081, the contract called for Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) under Civil and Hydro-Mechanical was canceled due to controversy.
Seven companies applied for the contract namely High Himalayan Hydro and AGE Company JV, Sharma and Zhongding International JV, Rail Development Corporation, Patel Engineering and Lama Construction JV, Ramechhap Sherpa Construction and Soma Enterprises JV, Sino Hydro, Om Infra and Fewa Construction JV. But the Jagdulla company claimed that the contract was canceled on December 22 after none of the companies passed the technical proposal.
