The Delhi High Court has directed the National Testing Agency (NTA) to file a detailed affidavit on a plea alleging gross irregularities in the tender process for the conduct of an examination for recruitment of various posts in the Gujarat high court.
The petitioners SKS Visions and its proprietor Sonu Goel, represented by senior advocate Pinaki Misra and assisted by advocates Anurag Chandra, Raj Kamal and Rohit Raman among others challenged the NTA in the recent tendering process for the recruitment in the Gujarat high court.
In the writ petition, it was alleged that there were substantial procedural irregularities in the tender dated October 15 2024 issued for “Hiring of experienced agencies firms” to provide ancillary security services on turnkey basis during Offline examination conducted by the NTA in Gujarat on pilot basis”.
The petitioner alleged that the tender was issued with minimal notice, providing inadequate time for bid submissions, and that it favoured a predetermined bidder “Sai Educare Pvt Ltd”, compromising transparency and accountability in public procurement.
Noting the gravity of the allegations, the Delhi high court directed the NTA to submit a detailed affidavit justifying its tender allocation process.
The petition claimed specific violations by the NTA, including deviation from Central Vigilance Commission guidelines in which the NTA reportedly accepted offline bids in place of the standard online bidding mechanism, thereby undermining transparency.
The NTA also lacked adherence to General Financial Rules (GFR) as it allegedly circumvented essential protocols, such as employing a single-packet bid system rather than the mandatory two-packet system for complex tenders, thereby bypassing comprehensive technical evaluation, the plea alleged.
The petition claimed the NTA allegedly caused a loss of over Rs 75 lakh to the public exchequer. The testing agency is also allegedly accused of not conducting a pre-bid conference despite the technical complexities, a key procedural lapse that purportedly affected the tender’s integrity, it said.
The petitioner sought a directive from the court to set aside the tender allocation, citing a violation of Article 14 of the Constitution, which mandates fairness and transparency by the state or its instrumentalities.
During the hearing, the NTA counsel admitted that it was the testing agency’s decision to release the short tender on October 15. The petitioner, however, stated that relying on NTA Public Notice dated September 27, NTA itself published that the notification by Gujarat High Court to conduct exam was notified in the month of May, which is five months before the October 15 public notice.
Notwithstanding the importance of the examination to be conducted, NTA deliberately chose not to publish the tender in time and chose to publish it online in October giving a 24-hour window to submit the bid offline, which can easily be manipulated and lacks transparency, the petitioner alleged.
The plea also highlighted that the NTA did not publish the tender online or through mandatory GeM portal just to avoid transparency and accountability in order to allegedly favour the bidder “Sai Educare Pvt Ltd”.
After the hearing, the Delhi high court directed the NTA to file a comprehensive affidavit detailing their stand and addressing the allegations.
