Delhi High Court Rejects German Firm's Plea Against C-DOT's Emergency-Alert Deal

(MENAFN- Live Mint) The Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a plea by Germany-based Utimaco Technologies challenging the Centre's decision to appoint state-owned Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT) as the sole implementation agency for India's emergency cell broadcast system without a public tender.

“Dismissed the petition with some observations,” Justice Sachin Datta said while pronouncing the order. A copy of the judgment was not available at the time of publication. The court's detailed observations and the reasons for dismissing the petition will be known once the order is published online.

The case, which has been before the high court since 2024, came up for an urgent hearing after the Centre launched a nationwide test of a multilingual cell broadcast system using C-DOT's technology on 2 May.

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The emergency cell broadcast system allows authorities to send alerts simultaneously to mobile phones within a defined geographical area, making it possible to communicate warnings during natural disasters and other emergencies without having to send out individual text messages.

'Strategic national asset'

The government had defended its decision to appoint C-DOT as the sole implementation agency, arguing that the emergency alert system was a strategic national asset involving public interest and national security, and that outsourcing it to a private entity could harm national interests.

The government also told the court that the proposal to appoint C-DOT as the single implementation agency for the project had been approved by the Union home minister.

During the hearing, Justice Datta asked the government to clarify whether its official record explicitly documented the reasoning that the project was a strategic national asset, and whether that justification was formally included in the approval process.

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Utimaco had challenged the Centre's decision primarily on procurement and transparency grounds. The company argued that the government had bypassed the normal public tender process despite the availability of competing technology providers.

Joint trial to single vendor

The dispute also relates to trials conducted for the cell broadcasting project since 2022. According to Utimaco's petition, the department of telecommunications had asked telecom operators to select implementation agencies for the rollout. Reliance Jio and Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL ) conducted trials with C-DOT, while Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea tested Utimaco's platform, according to the petition.

In 2024, after recommending both C-DOT and Utimaco as vendors, the DoT asked telecom operators to integrate their systems with a single agency: C-DOT. Utimaco has disputed the government's subsequent reliance on national security as its justification for selecting C-DOT.

In response to Mint's emailed queries on 5 May, Utimaco said the government's argument on national security had“never (been) raised before the trial started”.

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“The proof of concept for cell broadcasting was carried out by C-DOT on Utimaco's platform,” said Ronen Daniel, head of warning solutions at Utimaco Technologies.

Public tender vs policy decision

Another key issue in the dispute was whether the government was required to follow public tender rules. Utimaco argued that the Centre had violated the General Financial Rules (GFR), 2017, which provide for fair and transparent public procurement and ordinarily require procurement through a public tender, barring exceptional circumstances.

The government, however, argued that the decision was a matter of policy and that the GFR had been followed“in letter and spirit”. It also maintained that appointing C-DOT represented a natural continuation of work undertaken during the first phase of the project, which had been implemented by C-DOT.

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