The Hindu : Karnataka News : Court directive to Karnataka Government on BMIC project

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka

Court directive to Karnataka Government on BMIC project

Staff Reporter

Quashes petition against NICE, decides to prosecute Chief Secretary

BANGALORE: The Karnataka High Court on Tuesday dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition against the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) and directed the State Government and its instrumentalities, including the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB), to execute the project forthwith as originally conceived and upheld by the court in an earlier case.

The court also quashed the Government orders of January 4, 2004 and December 17, 2004 constituting a review committee and an expert committee to monitor the progress of the project. The reports of the committees and the action taken thereto were also quashed.

Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE), which is executing the project, was asked to expeditiously implement the project.

The petitioners and the Government alleged that there had been large-scale illegalities in the acquisition of land, particularly around Bangalore, for the project. Lands that did not fall within the project area had either been acquired or notified.

They said the Government had entered into an agreement with a U.S-led consortium for the project. The U.S. company, VSB, was a signatory to both the Frame Work Agreement (FWA) and the memorandum of understanding (MoU). Though the consortium had prepared and submitted a project report in 1995, it had not figured in the subsequent events. They said the Government was unaware that it was not a signatory to a document in which the consortium had purportedly assigned the rights of the project to NICE.

A Division Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, Nauvdip Kumar Sodhi, and Justice B. Padmaraj, which delivered the judgment levied costs of Rs. 50,000 on one of the three petitioners, J.C. Madhuswamy (the others are Srirama Reddy, MLA, and S. Munne Gowda of Bangalore), and asked him to pay the sum within four weeks to the Karnataka State Legal Services Authority.

PILs upheld

Upholding two other PILs petitions — one by the All India manufacturers' Association and the other by a former Mayor of Mysore, Mooda Mani — seeking expeditious completion of the project, the court observed that there was no merit in the arguments by the petitioners that NICE played a fraud on the Government and the people by misrepresenting facts and acquired excess land for the project.

The Bench decided to prosecute the Chief Secretary, K.K. Misra, and the Under Secretary in the Department of Commerce and Industries, M. Shivalinga Swamy, for making false statements in their affidavits filed in the court.

It directed the Registrar (Judicial) of the High Court to file before a competent court a complaint under Section 340 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr.P.C.).

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