A challenge to the judgement of the Lahore High Court‘s Single Bench, which earlier denied a writ suit challenging the decision of the Universal Service Fund (USF) to award a rural fiber broadband project to Nayatel, was dismissed by the court’s Division Bench.
To connect 70 union councils with more than 900 kilometers of fiber network, the Next Generation Optical Fiber Network and Services Project for Jhelum and Chakwal was announced for competitive bidding among the licensees and USF contributors in July 2021.
According to the Public Procurement Rules, 2004, PTCL‘s bid was not accepted by USF during the August 2021 bidding process because it was submitted after the deadline.
PTCL first appealed this USF ruling at LHC, however, the appeal was rejected by the court.
In response, PTCL filed an intra-court appeal against the order, arguing that the victor, Nayatel, lacked a commencement certificate in the Rawalpindi Telecom Region (RTR) and had also made no financial contribution from this specific concession.
Justice Ch. Muhammad Iqbal and Justice Safdar Saleem Shahid of the LHC Division Bench noted that Nayatel did not meet the conditions for disqualification under the USF Rules 2006 because it was a current USF contributor, was not in default, and held a valid license for that particular region.
According to the court, “keeping in view the facts and circumstances of the instant case, learned Single Judge of this Court has rightly observed that Nayatel is a (USF) contributor having a valid license who had been competing and by participating in other auctions and they were the only bidder since the PTCL has not been able to reach within time participate in the auction, therefore, disqualified whereas USF was right in approval of the bid of Nayatel”.
The Bench stated that PTCL filed a similar writ case with the Islamabad High Court under No. 3134 of 2021, which was rejected as withdrawn, and a second writ petition on the same issue was filed in relation to the Multan Region.
The court thus noted that PTCL had withheld important information from the proceedings, in violation of the well-established legal maxim that “he who seeks equity must come with clean hands.”
The court dismissed the present appeal because it lacked merit because was unable to identify any irregularity in the project’s award to Nayatel.
To read our blog on “Nayatel joins up with sky nine developers to fiberize Pakistani hotels,” click here.