| Apex court stays High Court order, questions propriety |
| SC nod for BMIC work on Gottigere lake |
| New Delhi,Nov 4,Deccan Herald News Service: |
The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor work on the peripheral road of Gottigere in Bangalore City. The apex court has stayed the High Court order in this regard.
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 “We are not on merit of the order, but on the propriety of the order by the High Court when the matter is pending before the Supreme Court,” a bench of Justices D K Jain, M K Sarma and R M Lodha observed while issuing notice to the State government.
“Is it not the order of High Court is contrary to our order passed yesterday?’’the bench questioned the advocate who appeared for V Vijayaraghavan, opposing the road construction, before proceeding to stay the impugned order and also further proceedings before the High Court.
Ashok Kheny, the promoter of Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise, (NICE) executing the project in his petition has said: “The High Court, however, vide its interim order dated 24.9.2009 restrained present petitioners from putting further constructions of peripheral road in any portion of Sy No 71 of Gottigere village inter alia on ground that the said affidavit of the Karnataka government is silent on certain aspects etc.”
Advocate Dushyant Dave appearing for Kheny submitted that the High Court should not have passed such an order when the matter was pending before the Apex Court.
Vijayaraghavan in a petition before Karnataka High Court had opposed the construction of the peripheral road as it would encroach a portion of Gottigere tank, a water body on the periphery of Bangalore.
Contempt petitions
Dave said the Supreme Court on Tuesday passed an order directing the Karnataka government to constitute a committee headed by Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa for implementing the project expeditiously.
A three-judge bench comprising Justices Tarun Chatterjee, R M Lodha and Deepak Verma in its interim order on contempt petitions said, “After hearing the learned counsel for parties and after going through materials on record and application for contempt, we are of the view that pending final disposal of contempt proceedings, the following order may be passed.” By a final judgment, this court directed the State/respondents to implement the project. Unfortunately, the said project has not yet been implemented, it observed.
“On February 4, when this contempt proceeding was taken up for hearing, G E Vahanvati, Solicitor General of India [as he then was] appearing for the State, stated before the court that the State government had decided to implement the judgment of the High Court of Karnataka, as upheld by this court, and needs time for implementation of the decision. Unfortunately, in spite of such submission made by the Solicitor-General [as he then was], we are informed that the project has not yet been implemented,” said the bench on Tuesday.
The Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises, said with the interim order issued by the Supreme Court, it would be able to complete the 41km Peripheral Road connecting Hosur road to Tumkur road with seven interchanges.
The 41km Peripheral Road is being used by passenger carrying units, LCVs, and HTVs for more than a year, except for the one-and-a-half kilometre stretch near Gottigere Tank where commuters had to take a small detour since the matter had been pending in the court. “Now commuters can enjoy a seamless drive on the NICE Peripheral Road once the construction work near Gottigere Tank is complete,” the company said in a release.
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