Litigation over passports procurement: Appeal Court gives varied interim order

• Department of Immigration and Emigration can proceed to source 750,000 N-Series passports from Thales-JIT consortium as urgent measures to resolve shortage
• Govt. agrees to Epic condition of a licence fee payment of nearly Rs. 350 m or not more than $ 1.50 per passport for Travel Document Personalisation System
• Interim order on staying of five million ePassport procurement extended till 6 November

The Court of Appeal this week gave, what it called a “varied” interim order on the urgent procurement of 750,000 N-Series passports to resolve the severe shortage.

Separately the Court extended the interim order on the procurement of five million ePassports till 6 November.

The decisions were by the Court of Appeal judges Justice M.T. Mohammed Lafir and Justice P. Kumararatnam.

The move follows Epic Lanka which has been supplying normal machine reading passport for 23 years sans a tender, challenged the Government’s decision to procure 750,000 MRPs from consortium involving Thales of Finland and Just In Time Technologies of Sri Lanka which has also been granted the contract to supply five million ePassports via competitive tender. Epic alleged the move was a violation of the initial procurement process.

Sources said the Government and the Controller of Immigration (DIE) agreed to proceed to procure N-Series passport from a suitable supplier as per the decision of the Government to overcome the present crisis faced by the country since there are only 13,080 blank passports left.

The DIE issues 1,000 passports per day on average and the stock is sufficient for only 13 working days.

EPIC has suggested to make use of Epic Travel Document Personalisation System (Epic TDPS) which is the existing travel document system at the DIE to personalise any passport, the Government may decide to procure from any vendors subject to a licence fee not more than $ 1.50 per passport until a new TDPS system is procured by the Government.

The Attorney General has received instructions from DIE that the proposal submitted by Epic is not necessary to obtain new passports. However, there is a requirement to do a changeover to remove two security features installed by Epic, thus they are in agreement to effect a payment for the same.

On behalf of the DIE, the Additional Solicitor General suggested that both parties discussed the technical features and the related payments at a mutually convenient date in order to reach a settlement.

The Acting Controller of DIE undertook to appoint a five-member committee to negotiate with the petitioners’ officials.

The DIE will also take urgent steps to procure 750,000 normal N-Series passports to resolve the existing crisis.

The Petitioners President’s Counsel stated that this compromise is agreed to by the petitioners voluntarily despite being advised of the sustainability of the guides assorted in terms of the petition including interim relief placing the interest of avoiding grave prejudice and inconvenience for the public of the country above the pursued of the petitioners in business interest. Subject to this variation, the petitioners stated that they assist with the pursuit of other reliefs sought. The compromise is between the petitioners and the State.

Viran Corea PC with Pramod Perera, Hiruni De Almeida and Shermina Bangsajayah appeared for the petitioners on the instructions of Neelakandan and Neelakandan. Buddhika Illangatillake with Vinura Kularathna instructed by Sanath Wijewardane for Just In Time Technologies.