The court delivered this judgement based on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Digvijay Khanvilkar, a MLA from Karveer (Kolhapur).Khanvilkar had challenged the decision taken by the MSEB in granting a Rs 180 crore order for retrofitting of 15 power stations to the Delhi-based PPIL, a 50:50 joint venture between BHEL and Siemens of Germany.

The court, however, has not granted any interim relief on the case and directed the petitioner to join all other bidders as party respondents to the said petition within one week. The court will take up litigation case on August 5. The case was heard by the chief justice BM Shah and justice Khandephalkar. Arguing on the behalf of petitioner counsel SGAney said that while MSEB was not justified in granting the order for all 15 turbines to PPIL, the manner in which the decision was taken was also questionable.

In an affidavit filed by MSEB, the board maintained that the decision to grant the contract to PPIL was taken after proper examination of the tenders. The bid of PPIL was not only economically viable but also offered additional generation capacity, it said.

MSEB counsel TR Andhyarjuna said on face value, the bid submitted by an other competitor, LMZ, seemed cheaper but in actual terms worked out to be dearer.