KATHMANDU, May 19: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant a stay order to the government's decision to buy 20 million LED bulbs from India through a fast-track channel.
Responding to a writ petition filed by advocates Narayan Chaulagain and Leknath Bhattarai last week, a single bench of Justice Ananda Mohan Bhattarai refused to issue the stay order saying that there was no reasonable ground to do so.
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The SC, however, has issued a show cause notice to the defendants why it avoided the standard procurement procedures to buy the LED bulbs. The petitioners have made eight government bodies including the Office of the Prime Minister and the Ministry of Energy and the Cabinet as the defendants in the case.
Instead of following a due bidding process, the Ministry of Energy had directly taken approval from the Cabinet to buy the bulbs, drawing criticism from all quarters.
