State files review petition in SC

State files review petition in SC
VIJAY TIMES NEWS

Bangalore: A possible legislation with regard to the controversial Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMIC) appears to be on hold with the State Government filing a review petition in the Supreme Court on Monday.

Sanjay Hegde, standing counsel, Government of Karnataka told Vijay Times that the review was filed before the registry on Monday. The petition filed under Article 137 of the Constitution seeks to review the April 20 order of the Apex Court which gave the green signal for the project,being implemented by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE).

A review petition once filed is examined by the judges in their chambers and in case they find sufficient grounds then the matter will come up before the court. A review is usually heard by the judges who had passed the original order. However in this case, with both Justice Ruma Pal and Justice B N Shrikrishna retiring, the Bench hearing the review will comprise Justice Dalver Bhandari who was part of the Bench which passed the original order. A new Bench with Justice Bhandari will have to be constituted to hear this matter.

In case the State government fails in the review, then it would have an option to file a curative petition.

STATE SEVERELY AFFECTED

In its review petition in the BMIC case, the State has said it is severely affected by Supreme Court judgment, which has far reaching consequences on the public exchequer and welfare of general public including future generations of the people of Karnataka.

At stake are thousands of acres of Government land and land of private parties worth several thousands of crores of rupees which would be irretrievably lost and accrue as unwarranted private gain to the developer, the petition stated.

GROUNDS

What is the actual requirement of land for Phase I & II , a question which was neither directly nor substantially in issue earlier? This arose only subsequently when survey numbers were sought to be ascertained.

--Whether on a true interpretation of the Frame Work Agreement dated 3rd April 1997 read with Project Technical Report of 1995 real estate activity could be undertaken outside the townships or around the interchanges? As per the statement of objections filed by Nandi, the area required for peripheral road is only 1,600 acres, which includes link roads, service roads, service changes and interchanges. The remaining extent of lands which are the subject matter of the land owners, who lost their lands consequent upon the acquisition and given some portion to the Indian Machine Tool Manufacturers Association (IMTMA) for the purpose of establishing a convention centre.

It is further stated that from the total extent of land acquired, 60% of the land will be utilized for the purpose of road and 40% of the land will be utilized for the purpose of township and for other purpose.

BMIC CASE

The review petition said the Apex Court has erroneously held that the K C Reddy report does not identify the excess land and therefore the plea of excess land is a bogey created to avoid the contract On the court observation that the argument of fraud on part of Nandi was quickly abandoned and hence the petition could be dismissed, the review states that the finding was erroneous. It is submitted that this shows that there is a patent error in the impugned judgment when it says that appeals could have been dismissed on the question of fraud and misrepresentation alone