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The Delhi High Court today issued notice in a contempt application filed by an NGO named Telecom Watchdog for alleged threats to them for filing a petition against the grant of award of contracts to Common Service Centres e-Governance Services Ltd (CSC) without following the tender/auction process. Counsel for petitioner, Adv. Prashant Bhushan urged the court to provide protection to the petitioner from coercive action. However, the court refused to pass any directions at this stage.

The division bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh however issued notice only to the Centre and refrained from issuing notice to police official.

Adv. Prashant Bhushan appearing for the petitioner submitted that the main petition concerns public funds being given away by government authorities without tenders, for which Secretary, DoT; Deputy Administrator (T-II), USO Fund, DoT; and certain police officials are intimidating the petitioners and threatening him with arrest. The petitioner's counsel submitted that an FIR has also been filed against the petitioner.

Bhushan stated, “They say I have committed theft, criminal breach of trust and they have issued summons to me under Section 41A of CrPC asking me to appear before them on Aug 23 and if I fail to appear they will arrest me. This way they are threatening me from disclosing that crores of public money are being looted.”

Bhushan, referring to a Supreme Court order where a contempt proceeding was initiated for threatening a petitioner by government officers said that that the court had said that, “These people should be declared whistleblowers.”

The petitioner had filed a petition seeking quashing of award of contracts on nomination basis by the Administrator of Universal Service Obligation (USO) Fund, working under the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), to a private company named CSC e-Governance Services India Ltd (“CSC SPV”), initially created as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) by Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY) for providing e-governance services under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model.

The petitioner has stated that CSC SPV turn has incorporated its wholly owned subsidiary company named CSC WiFi Choupal Services India Pvt Ltd (“CSC Choupal”).

“The modus operandi followed by them is as follows: USO Fund would award the contracts to CSC SPV on nomination basis, CSC would pass on all the contracts to CSC Choupal, which in turn would further pass on the contracts to various other private companies, without any tender”, states the plea.

Case Title: Telecom Watchdog vs UOI and ors