The Supreme Court has scrapped a provision in the Electronic Procurement System Directive-2023 which made it mandatory to publish procurement notices only through the electronic medium.

A division bench of the top court repealed the provision as it contradicted the existing legal provision. The Advertising Association of Nepal had challenged the controversial directive in the top court.

“The provision to limit public procurement only to the electronic medium contradicts the Public Procurement Act,” reads the full text of the January verdict released on Monday. “The provision is, therefore, scrapped.”

With the court order, notice of all the public procurements must be published in national and international newspapers.

A division bench of Justices Sushma Lata Mathema and Abdul Ajij Musalman had ruled the directive cannot supersede any Act. The Act says the notice of the national level bidding must be published in a national newspaper while the one related to the international bidding must be published in an international newspaper.

The Public Procurement Monitoring Office issued the directives with the provision to exclude the newspapers from publishing the bidding notice. The office planned to publish the notice only in the electronic procurement system. Defending the move before the court, the government had argued that the electronic procurement process is more transparent and reliable. It had also argued that accessing the notice from the electronic medium was easier than it was in the newspaper.

The Mathema-led bench, however, didn’t buy the argument and issued the verdict as demanded by the advertising association. The plaintiffs had argued that limiting the procurement only to the electronic medium in countries like Nepal where internet penetration and the digital literacy is low can not be justified on any ground.

The umbrella body of the advertising agencies had moved the top court on November 29, 2023. The directive came into implementation with the start of the current fiscal year in mid-July. The verdict was issued two months after the writ petition was filed. However, it took another three months for its full text to be out. The advertising companies had criticised the directive, claiming it contradicted the Act.

In its petition, the advertising association also had demanded an order to scrap the Advertisement Board. The court, however, refused to act as per its demand.