Implement electronic tender submission to prevent false documents, Karnataka High Court tells state

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court has asked the state government to implement a comprehensive methodology for the prevention of submission of false documents in public tenders. 

All public procurement processes in the state should mandate electronic submission of tender documents through the E-Procurement Portal, Justice Suraj Govindaraj said while dismissing the petition filed by a contractor challenging debarment.

“A comprehensive methodology for the prevention of submission of false documents in public procurement through structured utilisation of Information Technology, is required to be implemented by the Government of Karnataka and all procuring entities so as to take proactive action in such matters,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj said.

The court said the primary objective of the framework is early detection and prevention of false document submission at the tender design and submission stages, rather than reliance upon post-award cancellation or purely punitive remedies. The court issued directions on Document Format and Metadata Requirements while uploading the details. “The portal shall automatically generate a report citing reasons for rejecting any upload where mandatory metadata fields are left blank or contain obviously spurious data (e.g., validity periods exceeding the natural tenure of the document type). Standardised metadata enables automated cross-verification without manual intervention. It also creates an immutable audit trail of document provenance,” the court said.

The state government has been directed to establish and maintain a Centralised State Debarment Registry (SDR). The e-Procurement Portal should maintain a real-time Analytics Dashboard accessible to the State Finance Department and state govt for tracking purposes, the court said. “A sanitised version of the Analytics Dashboard (excluding contractor identifiable information) shall be published quarterly on the State e-Governance portal to promote transparency and deter fraud,” Justice Suraj Govindaraj said, adding that the points in the order are only indicative and not exhaustive. The court has asked the authorities to file a report regarding the implementation in six weeks.

In the case at hand, the petitioner Anantha Krishna Shetty, a resident of Mangaluru, challenged the order passed by the Mangalore City Corporation (MCC) debarring him from participating in the tender process for submitting false supporting documents. Justice Suraj Govindaraj dismissed the petition, with liberty to the MCC to take necessary criminal action against the petitioner.

“This is not a stray case. There are several matters coming up before this court wherein false documents were furnished during the tender submission process, which indicates systemic vulnerabilities in the procurement processes of public bodies. This resulted in repeated submission of false and forged documents by unscrupulous tenderers, thereby occasioning substantial loss to the public exchequer and undermining the integrity of public procurement,” the court said.