The main legal point established is the court's reliance on the CBI Manual 2020 to assess the CBI's handling of the Preliminary Enquiry and the recommendations for departmental action against BSNL officers.

JUDGMENT

1. The instant Writ Petition has been filed by the Petitioner herein which is a society working towards protecting the interests of consumers in the telecom sector, seeking for a direction to the Central Bureau of Investigation (hereinafter referred to as `the CBI') to investigate a complaint dated 11.03.2016 which has been sent by the Petitioner herein to the CBI alleging criminal conspiracy between some officials of Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (hereinafter referred to as `the BSNL') & Chinese vendor M/S ZTE Telecom Ltd. in relation to a tender invited by the BSNL for Planning, Engineering, Supply, Installation, Testing, Commissioning and Annual Maintenance of 14.37 Million Lines for Phase-VII Expansion of GSM/UMTS Based Cellular Mobile Network in North, East & South Zones.

2. The gist of the allegation levelled by the Petitioner is that in October, 2011 BSNL invited tenders for 14.37 million GSM mobile telephone lines on turnkey basis for three zones, i.e. North, East & South Zones. The scope of the tender included planning, engineering, supply, installation, testing, commissioning and annual maintenance of these lines. It is alleged that the BSNL in its tender has prescribed eight milestones for releasing payment according to which only 50% payment was payable up to delivery stage, i.e. Milestones 1 to 3, and the balance payment was to be released in a phase wise manner in different stages on commissioning as per Milestones 4 to 8. The Petitioner has given a table delineating the milestones and the same is reproduced as under:

3. It is stated by the Petitioner that in the pre-bid stage various queries had been raised by the prospective bidder regarding the quantum of payment that could be released. The Petitioner herein has made a specific allegation that query No.1846 was for a clarification as to how the milestone payments against the surplus material handed over to BSNL shall be paid to the Vendor, for which a specific answer was received from the BSNL that the payment milestones shall be governed by purchase order conditions.

4. It is stated by the Petitioner that after bidding process, M/s. ZTE Private Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as `the M/s ZTE') emerged as a successful bidder for all the three zones. It is the allegation of the Petitioner that though the BSNL kept on procuring the material but M/s ZTE had not made the sites ready for installation which resulted in loss of a substantial quantity of material which was lying in the M/s ZTE storeroom. The allegation of the Petitioner is that M/s ZTE in connivance with the officers of the BSNL wanted payments to be released for the material without the BSNL taking physical possession of the equipment. According to the Petitioner, the payments were being released without the milestones having being achieved by M/s ZTE. It is stated that in order to ensure that the payments were made before the achievement of milestones, fictitious query No.59 was prepared and a clarification was sought as to how the milestone payments against the surplus material handed over to BSNL shall be paid to the Vendor and for this query a fictitious response was secured stating that 90% of the cost of the surplus material handed over at the warehouse will be paid upon submission of documents as per Section-V-B clause 10.1.6 and balance 10% will be payable as per milestone-8 of Section-V-B, cl