APC procurement deal: SC orders Sindh law officer to submit complete records again

Bench displeased with provincial authorities’ failure to submit official correspondence.

KARACHI: The Supreme Court (SC) has once again directed the provincial law officer to submit a complete record, including original summaries and correspondence, regarding the procurement of armoured personnel carirers (APCc) by the provincial government for the police force from a Serbian company.

On Monday, the bench headed by Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, repeated this order as officials failed to submit the record as sought by the bench on the last date of hearing.



The onging proceedings were initiated on an application filed by civil rights campaigner, Syed Mehmood Akhtar Naqvi, who blamed the authorities of violating the international procurement bidding rules while striking a deal to buy the armoured vehicles.

The applicant claimed that the deal was struck with the foreign company without inviting international tenders, which was a violation of the procurement laws. He also alleged that the authorities wanted to use the money themselves.

The court was pleaded to set aside the procurement deal and order an inquiry into the scam.

On December 19, the bench had directed a provincial law officer to submit the original summaries and correspondence regarding the proposed deal of the Sindh government with the foreign company.

In its report, the Heavy Industries Taxila officials informed the court that APCs of B-7 level and more advanced levels ones named ‘Dragon’ could be produced and supplied by them to the Sindh police with their required specifications.

Therefore, the judges directed the law officer to supply the complete specifications of the APCs to the officials of the Heavy Industries, who may give their quotation for the compatible vehicles/APCs manufactured by them and its standards to have a comparison about the performance and price of the vehicles.

In addition to this, the government was also directed to provide specifications and details of the APCs and other vehicles required for the police force for quotation from the Heavy Industries within a week.

When, the judges took up the matter on Monday, the law officer tried to submit a summary addressed to the chief minister of Sindh for procurement of the armoured vehicles.

The bench expressed displeasure on the provincial authorities’ failure to submit the complete record of the official correspondence. They ordered that the complete record should be submitted to the court by the next date of hearing.

Advocate Farooq H Naek filed a power of attorney on behalf of the Sindh chief secretary and requested for time to file comments regarding the controversial deal.

The bench allowed this request and directed him to file comments by December 31.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 30^th, 2014.