AP High Court upholds deals to joint ventures of IVRCL, Maytas

The Andhra Pradesh High Court today upheld the validity of contracts awarded to the joint ventures of IVRCL and Maytas under category-1 packages, while revoking its earlier interim orders to keep the entire tender process in abeyance.

Issuing orders on the revision petition filed by both the companies, which cited the fact that they were fully qualified for the empanelment for category-1 packages even before the relaxation of the norms by the irrigation department, Andhra Pradesh High Court Chief Justice Devinder Gupta gave a go-ahead for the execution of nine out of the 21 packages held by them.

Accordingly the court altered its earlier orders, saying that the new applicants "" if qualified for the category-1 packages "" should be considered for the remaining packages that are yet to be awarded.

But according to C V S K Sarma, principal secretary of irrigation department, consequent to the government's clarification on the status of the 21 packages for which the department has already signed agreements with the nine prequalified companies in the first category, the high court also gave approval for the execution of the entire 21 packages as awarded to the nine companies, including IVRCL and Maytas.

This means that if any of the sixteen firms who have freshly applied for the empanelment under category-1 following the court orders, would be considered in the tender process for only the remaining 32 packages under this category.