The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Friday allowed Pakistan Railways (PR) to purchase locomotives, after General Manager gave undertaking to re-invite the tender and allow all international locomotive manufacturers to participate in the bidding. The court while disposing of a petition challenging purchase of only US locomotives by PR allowed it to purchase locomotives through open bidding and by directly approaching the manufacturers, who meet the specifications of Pakistan Railways.
Earlier, Barrister Syed Ali Zafar in his concluding arguments submitted that Pakistan Railways having its own standardised and approved railway engines and in view of the technical requirements and specifications, cannot purchase locomotives of un-approved specifications. He said in the national interest Pakistan Railways be allowed to procure the required locomotives urgently.
Additional General Manager Operations, PR appeared in person and submitted that PR would invite offers from any manufacturer, who will be able to provide locomotives as per specification and requirements of Pakistan Railways and requested the court to dispose of the petition.
He submitted that keeping in view the safety and technical requirements, a locomotive could only be approved after it had been tested over the period of more than 10 years and so far, in Pakistan only two engines of required specification had been approved.
The petitioner Malik Abdul Rehman had submitted that the PR director procurement had issued international tenders for procurement of locomotives from US manufacturers only. Petitioner's counsel Salman Akram Raja submitted that the tenders were intentionally restricted to US while according to the rules 10, 11 and 24 of the Public Procurement Rules 2004, tenders ought to disregard nationality. Even otherwise, transparency and good governance required that an international tender must be open to world.