 "Gujarat high court issues notice to GIFT City")
Admitting a public interest litigation (PIL), the Gujarat high court on Tuesday issued a notice to the Gujarat Internat-ional Finance Tec-City Company after hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) that alleged financial and governance irregularities in the mega project.
Adjourning the matter till March 15, the Bench of Acting Chief Justice Jayant Patel and Justice Vipul M Pancholi issued the notice to GIFT City Company, a 50:50 joint venture between Gujarat Urban Development Company (GUDCL), a Gujarat government undertaking, and publicly held Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS), seeking a response.
Filed by D C Anjaria, a former independent director and audit committee chairman at GIFT City Company, the PIL, among several other contentions, has raised questions regarding sale of development rights, ownership of land, recognition of income, appointment of public information officer and waste of public money, thereby leading to additional burden on citizens.
Apart from alleging that the sale of development rights in the project were not being recognised as income, the petition had also prayed to the court to direct GIFT City to be named a 'public authority' under the Right to Information Act and appoint a public information officer. "We have also pleaded to the court to direct the entity to be amenable to an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India," said Anjaria.
The petition has made GIFT City Company, GUDCL, IL&FS, and GIFT City Company chairman Sudhir Mankad and as respondents, Anjaria and his legal counsel, advocates Rasesh Parikh and Hemang Parikh said. The PIL did not make the state government a respondent.
The project is known as a pet project of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and is being marketed as the first "global financial hub" in the country.
Anjaria said, "This petition has been filed to safeguard the interest of the government and the public money involved in the dealings of development of the city. Hence, we have not made the government a party to this petition. GIFT City Company, its chairman, Sudhir Mankad, Gujarat Urban Development Authority and IL&FS have been named as respondents. It seems that the government-appointed board of directors failed to safeguard the interest of public money. We have appealed to the Hon court that a team should be formed to investigate the financial irregularities." An Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) alumnus, the 69-year-old Anjaria was part of the original team that conceived and presented the Rs 70,000-crore project in 2006-07 to the then Gujarat chief minister, Narendra Modi.
