The Interim Order filed against the purchase of 750,000 normal passports from private companies has been amended, with the agreement of the petitioners, to allow the Immigration Controller General to handle the purchasing.
The amendment to the interim order was approved by the Court of Appeal when the petition filed in this regard was taken up for hearing yesterday.
As such, the amended interim order only permits the Immigration Controller General to purchase normal passports from private companies and not e-passports.
The court was informed by the Attorney General’s Department that the Immigration Department currently possessed only 13,880 passport books and it was only sufficient for the next 30 days.
The Attorney General’s Department further said that following this, the Immigration Department will not be able to issue any passports.
The court was also informed that the interim order against the purchase of new passport books had severely inconvenienced the public as it had affected the issuance of passports.
The facts were presented when the writ petition filed by Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd and its Executive Chairman challenging the former Cabinet’s decision to purchase 750,000 N-Series passports was taken up for hearing yesterday.
The former Cabinet had approved a proposal to purchase 750,000 N-Series passports from Thales DIS Finland OY and Just In Time Technologies (Pvt) Ltd as part of the initial procurement for the supply of five million e-Passports.
However, the decision was challenged by Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd alleging that it was a corrupt deal that violated the tender procedure.
In its petition, Epic Lanka (Pvt) Ltd pointed out that the deal bypassed the National Procurement Guidelines, was outside of the proper procurement procedure, and that the National Procurement Commission has also acknowledged in writing that the procurement had irregularities. (Newswire)
