BMIC: apex court restrains Karnataka

BMIC: apex court restrains Karnataka

J. Venkatesan

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday restrained the Karnataka Government from proceeding further with the notification of September 17 inviting global bids from companies or consortiums for development of the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) on the Swiss Challenge Method.

A Bench, comprising Justice B.N. Agrawal, Justice P.P. Naolekar and Justice D.K. Jain, passed the order on a writ petition filed by Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) which is executing the project.

The Bench heard senior counsel Ashok Desai for the petitioner and counsel Sanjay Hegde for the Karnataka Government before passing the order. In its brief order, the Bench issued notice to Karnataka returnable in two weeks and rejoinder, if any, two weeks thereafter. “Until further orders, no action whatsoever shall be taken pursuant to the notification dated September 17 issued by the State of Karnataka and the advertisement issued pursuant thereto. Place the matter after four weeks.”
“Great prejudice”

Challenging the notification, NICE submitted in its writ petition that the Cabinet’s decision to review the project and invite global bids without cancelling the agreement with NICE was most unfortunate and disturbing for a democratic society governed by the rule of law. Great prejudice would be caused if the notification was not quashed, it said. It prayed to restrain the State from acting any further pursuant to the notification.