Chennai: In view of the Diwali festival, the Chennai High Court has ordered an interim stay on the tender announced for the distribution of palm oil packets in ration shops.
In view of the Diwali festival, it has been decided to distribute palm oil to the public through ration shops. For this purpose, the Tamil Nadu Cooperative, Food and Consumer Protection Department issued a tender notification on June 5 to procure about 60 million one-litre palm oil packets. Various companies participated in it. The tender was opened on Sept. 8, and the contract for supplying palm oil packets was awarded to four companies.
In this, as the first phase, these companies were ordered on Sept. 29 to supply 200 lakh palm oil packets to the warehouses of the Civil Supplies Corporation by the 29th of this month. A case was filed in the Madras High Court by KTV Health Food, which had won the tender, challenging the order issued by the Civil Supplies Corporation, saying that the palm oil packets to be supplied had not been divided on a proportional basis.
In it, “Under the order issued to first distribute 200 lakh packets, MGM company, which has taken the tender to distribute 200 lakh packets, has been ordered to supply 80 lakh packets; Kumar Agro company, which has taken the tender to distribute 210 lakh packets, 52 lakh packets; Integrate company, which is required to supply 180 lakh packets, 34 lakh packets; and our company, which is required to supply 360 lakh packets, 34 lakh packets.”
That is, this order was not issued on the basis of the correct proportion of packets to be distributed. It is not proper to order that our company, which has taken the tender to distribute 360 lakh palm oil packets, must supply 34 lakh packets, and that MGM Oil Company, which is to distribute 150 lakh packets, must supply 80 lakh packets. Therefore, the order issued on Sept. 29 regarding palm oil distribution should be canceled. It has been stated that the government should be directed to issue orders to distribute palm oil packets on a proportional basis.
This case came up for hearing before Judge P.T. Asha. Advocate R. Saravanan appeared and argued on behalf of the petitioner. Taking note of this, the judge issued an interim stay on the order passed on Sept. 29 by the Civil Supplies Corporation regarding palm oil distribution and adjourned the hearing to Nov. 2.
