Motorola demands minutes of meeting in BSNL contract case

New Delhi, Feb 26 (UNI) The multi-national telecom company Motorola today urged the Delhi High Court to direct the BSNL to provide the minutes of the meeting which decided to award the contract of the Rs 20,000 crore GSM expansion project to Ericsson and Nokia last year.

''The techno-commercial committee report should also be given to it to study the reasons for disqualification,'' said Senior Counsel Anup Choudhury appearing before a Division Bench of Justice Swatanter Kumar and Justice H R Malhotra.

The government deliberately disqualified it to allegedly favour two other companies, he said.

The court adjourned the matter till tomorrow for further hearing.

In a petition Motorola, which had tied up with Chinese company ZTE, alleged that the BSNL had deliberately omitted the company from the financial bid on October 7, 2006 after accepting its tender terms fearing alleged security threat from China.

In an order on November 2, 2006 the High Court had restrained the government in awarding the contract to Ericsson and Nokia till the disposal of the petition.

If the BSNL's decision remained the same after due evaluation, Ericsson would bag the contract for supplying 60 per cent of the equipment, while Nokia would get the remaining 40 per cent at the price quoted by the former company.

UNI