SC orders status quo on Karnataka freeway contract

The Supreme Court today directed the Karnataka government not to take "any action whatsoever" pursuant to the notification inviting global tenders for the controversial Bangalore-Mysore infrastructure project.

The bench headed by Justice B N Agrawal passed the order on a petition moved by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise, which is already implementing the project following the award of the contract in 1997. The company argued that it has so far spent Rs 1,200 crore on the project to build a 111-km multi-lane expressway linking the two cities.

Counsel Ashok Desai submitted that the Karnataka High Court and the Supreme Court had earlier asked the state government and the company to execute the project without any delay. Despite the Supreme Court's mandatory order of April last year, the state government has now come up with a fresh gobal tender and has advertised in the newspapers offering the "Swiss Challenge" system. This was against the order of the Supreme Court itself and violated all norms of competitive bidding.

He named former Prime Minister Dev Gowda for putting political hurdles before the ongoing project.

State government counsel Sanjay Hegde contended that what was happening was that the infrastructure company was grabbing land in the name of implementing the project. Therefore, the government introduced the Swiss Challenge system where other parties could also compete to join the project offering their best terms. This was in public interest, according to him.

In its order, the court asked the government to file its written reply within two weeks. The case will be heard again after a month. There are already several cases related to the project pending in the high court and the Supreme Court.

In the judgement passed last year, the Supreme Court had severely indicted the state government for stalling the project and directed the immediate commencement of the work. The Chief Secretary of the state was accused of perjury in the  high court. On the political side, two sons of Deve Gowda H D Revanna (state PWD Minister) and Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy are also accused of involvement in the project.