NICE wins legal battle, BMIC to go ahead

NICE wins legal battle, to acquire land for BMIC

Deccan Herald

The Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise Limited (NICE) has won a legal battle against the land owners and the State Government with the Karnataka High Court on Monday upholding acquisition of land for the controversial Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project.

The division bench comprising Chief Justice N K Sodhi and Justice B Padmaraj passed the order while setting aside the order of a single judge, who had quashed final notification issued by the government to acquire land to form townships and other projects all along the proposed expressway between Bangalore and Mysore.
Initially the State government and the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) had appealed against the single judge’s order in support of NICE’s contention. However, later the government and the KIADB withdrew the appeals following the decision taken by the new coalition government in the State.

Following this, NICE alone contested the case before the division bench. On the other hand owners of the land acquired for the expressway and other connected roads too had filed appeals questioning the order of the single judge, as it had upheld acquisition of land for the expressway, peripheral road and link road projects.

Writing the judgment for the bench, Justice Padmaraj held that single judge’s order of quashing the land acquisition notification in part was not at all permissible as it would lead to anomalous result.

“When the expressway, township and related projects form a part of an integrated project, the quashing of notification in part is incorrect and single judge’s order is highly improper and perverse”, the bench held declaring that “the notification fully confirms to the requirement of law.”

Further, the bench observed that “the single judge seems to have lost sight of the fact that as per the frame work of agreement signed by the State government, KIADB and NICE, land for township and for a world class convention centre was required to be provided to the project to facilitate and contribute to the development of industry.”

“The convention centre was specifically sanctioned and approved by the Government itself”, the bench noted while upholding acquisition of land for these purposes. The bench, as held by the single judge, upheld the notification acquiring land for expressway, peripheral road and link road projects, which are also part of the BMIC project.