Supreme court sets aside HC order on group housing by NICE

The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Karnataka High Court’s order of 2019 allowing Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) Ltd to construct a group housing in 42 acres 30 guntas of land in Bengaluru.

The court said the project proponents cannot go beyond the stipulations and specifications mentioned in the framework agreement and the project technical report without prior approval of the state.

A bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar and Dinesh Maheshwari said that prior approval of the state for deviation is the “quintessence”.

Acting on a plea by the Karnataka government and the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Area Planning Authority, the court declared that it is not open to the project proponents to develop the land in any other manner, unless permitted by the state.

“The right in favour of project proponents to carry on development work on the lands referred to in the framework agreement of April 3, 1997 and in the project technical report of August, 1995, would ensure only in conformity with the stipulations and specifications,” it said.

The court, however, asked Nice, the project proponents of the Bengaluru-Mysuru Infrastructure Corridor Project on over 20,000 acres of land, to first approach the state for its prior permission to allow them to deviate from the stipulations and specifications.