The Delhi high court last week held that the clause in a tender document for building contract permitting 5 per cent bid security amount to be forfeited in case of a non-responsive bid is “clearly penal in nature and thus provisions of Section 74 of the Contract Act would apply.” It cannot be categorized as a reasonable pre-estimate of damages for a non-responsive bid and thus the bank guarantee for 5 per cent of the bid amount cannot be encashed in such an eventuality. The high court ruled this in the case of IVRCL Infrastructure and Projects Ltd vs National Highway Authority of India. The “request for proposal” submitted by the firm for a road project in Tamil Nadu being responsive, the forfeiture was illegal the firm was entitled to refund of the amount from NHAI, the judgment said.
The telecom companies, under scruitny for having benefited in 2G spectrum scam, today told the Supreme Court that allocation of the air waves since 2003 should be scrapped if the first-come-first serve policy adopted during the tenure of former Telecom Minister A Raja is held illegal. In a clear reflection of the war among telecom players, senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for Etisalat DB Telecom Pvt Ltd, submitted the government never followed the policy of auction for 2G spectrum allocation and many companies benefitted by getting additional radio waves without any charge since 2003.
The country’s highest court — the Supreme Court of India — on Tuesday mulled invoking terror and other stringent penal charges against Pune stud-farm owner Hassan Ali Khan who has been accused of massive money laundering and tax evasion and for his alleged links with arm dealers and people linked to terror activities.
Consequent upon the printing and publishing of the Budget Bulletins, 2011 (both Customs and Central Excise & Service Tax), the Directorate of Publicity and Public Relations has subsequently been informed that the following corrections are required to be incorporated in the above said Budget Bulletins, 2011.
The Income Tax department has raised to Rs. 89,000 crore its total tax demand on Hasan Ali Khan and his associates with the businessman himself having to cough up around Rs. 62,000 crore.The IT department, which earlier had raised a total tax demand of Rs. 71,845 crore on Mr. Khan and his associates, has now included a 24 per cent penalty on this amount as the assessment on them was made in 2008, according to the department sources.
The government today said it would come out with the guidelines on independent directors to improve the quality of representation on the boards of the state-run companies. Heavy Industries and Public Sector Enterprises Minister Praful Patel said the quality of independent directors in the PSU boards “needs to be upgraded”.
