SC gives 8 weeks to Karnataka on land allotment for expressway

Attorney General G E Vahanvati,appearing for the state,agreed to abide by the direction.

Counsel Prashant Bhushan appearing for social worker Anandmurthy and senior counsel Dushayant Dave appearing for the promoters were engaged in a slanging match during the hearing.

While Bhushan accused the promoters of illegally grabbing 4,000 acres of farmers’ land and perpetrating a fraud on the people,Dave said the former cannot claim to be a champion of honesty by making such reckless allegations.

State’s Advocate General Ashok Haranhally had earlier told the bench that Karnataka has already alloted 7,000 acres to the promoter and assured the court that the state would not come in the way of the project’s smooth execution.

He urged the court to give a direction to NICE to stick to the alignment of the route as per the originally approved plan.

The project estimated to cost over Rs 1,500 crore is aimed at constructing an 111 km-long expressway between Bangalore and Mysore with five satellite townships along it.

The project has been mired in controversy and had hit a roadblock after former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda’s son H D Kumarswamy assumed power in 2004 and sought to halt it alleging irregularities in land allotment,including sanction of excess land.

Deve Gowda had himself written a book alleging massive corruption and irregularities in the allotment of the project by the then Congress government.

The apex court had on April 20,2006,dismissed the then state government’s Special Leave Petition challenging the project’s sanction to NICE by the previous S M Krishna government.

The court had also directed the government to ensure that no obstacles were put in its smooth execution.

The promoter had approached the apex court in March 2008 accusing the Kumarswamy government of putting spokes in the project.

The court had issued contempt notices to the Karnataka Chief Secretary and six other officials for their alleged attempts to disobey its orders on permitting smooth construction of the project.

In February this year,Justice Arijit Pasayat (since retired) recused himself at the request of Deve Gowda who alleged certain bias of the judge. The apex court had also on February 20 stayed a Lok Ayukta inquiry into the allotment.

On March 5,2008,the apex court had issued a contempt notice to several officials of Karnataka for failing to comply with its directions for execution of the project.