The Madras High Court has directed the Kancheepuram and Chennai District Managers of the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) to furnish tender applications to over 50 persons for establishing bars in retail shops.
Justice R Sudhakar gave the direction while passing orders on a batch of writ petitions from G Gnanavel of Ashok Nagar and others, on Tuesday.
According to petitioner’s counsel K Selvaraj, the Kanchi district TASMAC manager published a tender notification on November 2 last for grant of bar licences for sale of eatables and collection of empty bottles from a retail shop in Kanchi.
Though Gnanavel paid the necessary fee by way of DD, the manager did not furnish the application and the petitioner was made to run from pillar to post.
It was stated that the tender forms could be obtained from the official website. But the same was not available on the website.
The provisions of Rule 16 of the TN Transparency in Tenders stated that the tender inviting authority should make available the documents from the date of publication of the tender notification and ensure they are made available to any aspiring person.
Rule 16(3) said if the value of the contract was Rs 10 lakh, the documents should be made available for downloading free of cost. But the tender inviting authority did not follow the mandatory provisions, Selvaraj contended.