The Central Administrative Court has dismissed a petition filed by Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC) seeking an injunction to suspend the current round of bidding for the right to jointly invest in Orange Line's western extension project.
The court rejected the petition on Monday, reasoning that there was no sound rationale to put on hold the ongoing bidding of the Bang Khun Non-Min Buri extension of the Orange Line, while the requested suspension of the project would cost about 41.26 million baht a day in the project's costs of so-called care of work.
BTSC had last month petitioned the court to suspend this second round of bidding of the project and order the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand (MRTA) to bring back the 2020 version of both the terms of reference (ToR) and request for proposal (RFP) initially used in the first round of bidding.
The court had earlier last month ruled in favour of BTSC, saying the MRTA's decision on Feb 3 to scrap the first round of bidding, which the BTSC took part in, was against the law.
In addition to cancelling the first round, the MRTA also sent out an invitation to tender under revised terms, which led to the lawsuit by the BTSC.
And following last month's ruling, the BTSC petitioned the court to suspend the current round of bidding.
Previously on July 27, two prospective contenders submitted their proposals for the called joint investment in the western Orange Line extension project, said a source. The two parties were Bangkok Expressway and Metro Plc, and ITD Group, said the same source, adding that later last Monday, the bid selection committee had already begun examining the qualifications of both contenders.
And since the court has dismissed BTSC's petition against the bidding process, the bid selection committee now is expected to move on to the next step of the bidding process, said the source.
The second step deals mainly with examining both parties' technical ability to implement the electric rail project, said the source.