Division Bench of Lahore High Court has rejected an appeal against the order of its Single Bench to dismiss a petition against the decision of USF to grant Nayatel a rural fiber broadband project.
In July 2021, licensees and USF contributors will be able to bid on the Next Generation Optical Fiber Network and Services Project for Jehlum and Chakwal. The Public Procurement Rules, 2004, said that USF couldn’t accept PTCL’s offer because it came in late in August 2021.
The court did not agree with PTCL’s argument against USF’s LHC ruling.
PTCL appealed the decision in court, saying that Nayatel didn’t have a Rawalpindi Telecom Region (RTR) starting certificate and didn’t pay any money from this license.
The LHC Division Bench made up of Justice Ch. Muhammad Iqbal and Justice Safdar Saleem Shahid, said that according to USF Rules 2006. A bidder must be a current USF donor, not be in default, and have a valid license for that region. Because of this, Nayatel wasn’t disqualified.
The court wrote, “Considering the facts and circumstances of the instant case. The learned Single Judge of this Court has rightly observed that Nayatel is a (USF) contributor with a valid license who had been competing and participating in other auctions. They were the only bidder since PTCL couldn’t get to the auction in time and was disqualified. Whereas USF was right to accept Nayatel’s bid.”
The Islamabad High Court threw out PTCL’s writ case No. 3134 of 2021 because it was the same as writ case No. 3134 of 2021. Another writ petition was filed for Multan Region about the same thing.
The court said that PTCL had kept important information from it. Which went against the idea that “he who wants justice must come with clean hands”. The court found that Nayatel’s project award was fair and turned down the appeal.
