LAHORE: The Lahore High Court has admitted for regular hearing two petitions blaming the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board for rule violation in a tender floated for the purchase of 500 metric tons offset printing paper and 8,000 metric tons offset printing paper for academic session 2016-2017. The total value of the paper sought to be purchased was about Rs750 million.

The petitions filed by a paper mill allege that the bidding document has been designed intentionally so as to oust all other contenders (paper mills) except the two selected mills.

It says various provisions have been added in the bidding documents, which would disentitle the petitioner and four other papers mills of almost the same size for participating in the impugned bidding and would thus the violate Section 3 of the Competition Commission of Pakistan Act, 2010 and Rule 34 of the Punjab Procurement Rules, 2014.

In response to one of the petitions, the respondent textbook board objected to the locus standi of the petitioner. It says any seller cannot force the buyer to purchase only his product as per law. It says the terms and conditions mentioned in the standard bidding document are as per procurement rules and do not bar any firm from submitting tender.

Justice Ayesha A Malik admitted the petitions for regular hearing and fixed Sept 8 for further proceedings on the matter.