Petition filed by Uflex Limited dismissed

CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the corrigendum (modifying the experience clause) issued by the Commissioner of Prohibition and Excise (CPE) in its tender notification for production and supply of polyester hologram excise labels on turnkey basis.Justice V Dhanapalan dismissed the petition filed by Uflex Limited, New Delhi, a public limited company.According to petitioner, the CPE issued a tender notification in February 2011, specifying the technical specification, which was required in the hologram labels. It specified a condition that the tenderer should have at least three years experience in the field of manufacture of hologram. However, subsequently the CPE issued a corrigendum, by which the experience condition was changed, adding that the tenderer apart from having a minimum three years experience, should also have experience of three years each for conventional Master Origination from 2D/3D and dot matrix system separately. Hence, the petitioner requested CPE to waive the condition. But there was no reply.The judge said in order to ensure that the government of TN should not suffer revenue loss and also keeping in view that public should not be supplied with spurious products which endanger the lives of the public, and in public interest, the government through CPE was procuring the hologram labels for its use in the products of liquor. From Rule 17 of Tamil Nadu Transparency in Tender Rules, there cannot be any iota of doubt that after issuance of the tender documents and before the opening of the tender, the authority may make changes, modifications or amendments.