Guj.HC fines PIL litigants

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court has imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 on each of the two litigants from Vadodara who filed a PIL seeking cancellation of tendering process of Gujarat Urja Vikas Nigam Ltd (GUVNL) in purchase of transformers.
The petitioners, Sudhir Shah and B K Vaidya, sought all five electricity companies of Gujarat to stop purchase of Amorphous transformers in place of CRGO transformers. They contended that the purchase of amorphous transformers would cause an extra burden of Rs 120 on state exchequer because they are more costly than CRGO transformers. They also argued that both the transformers are equal in energy saving, and without assigning any reason for their choice, the electricity companies have decided to purchase new transformers and initiated the tendering process.
The court questioned the bonafide of the petitioners and raised a doubt that the persons interested in CRGO transformers might project the two litigants as mouth piece. The court inquired about petitioners’ source of income, and it was found that one of them was insurance agent drawing money from interest of his savings and the other was retired engineer earning just Rs 1,000 towards pension. The court questioned as to why they should be interested in this litigation.
The court observed that whether the public companies should go for amorphous transformers or for CRGO transformers is not for the court to decide by merely trying to show that in comparison to Amorphous transformers, CRGO transformers are much better. “This Court does not have the expertise on the subject. It is for an expert body to look into all these aspects and we are satisfied that there has been substantial deliberations on this issue by an expert body. Not only this, but we have also noticed that the representation of manufacturers of CRGO transformers has also been considered,” the court noticed in its order.