In a huge setback to Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) Pvt. Ltd., the Supreme Court has declared that the company cannot construct housing scheme outside the demarcated five townships under the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) Project as per the Project Technical Report (PTR) and the Frame Work Agreement (FWA) of 1997.
The apex court also clarified that neither the High Court nor the SC, in their earlier judgements in the All-India Manufacturers’ Organisation case, had not answered the question that the company was free to construct standalone group housing scheme and at location(s) of its choice outside the demarcated five townships as per the FWA and PTR.
A bench comprising, Justice A.M. Khanwilkar and Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, delivered the judgement on May 19 while allowing an appeal filed by the BMIC Area Planning Authority (BMICAPA) and the State government questioning the Karnataka High Court’s October 15, 2019 judgement.
The High Court had directed BMICAPA to issue commencement certificate to NICE and Nandi Economic Corridor Enterprises (NECE) for construction of a group housing scheme in 42 acres and 30 guntas of land handed over to the companies for the BMIC project at Kommaghatta Village, Kengeri hobli, Bangalore South taluk (at interchange 5/7, Section A of the BMIC project on the peripheral road).
Making it clear that the housing scheme can be executed only at five demarcated township as per the FWA, the SC said that any other proposal of NICE/NECE would be nothing but deviation from the FWA.
“The purpose of intersections is to provide for free flow of traffic across the area. All the five Townships referred to in the PTR are indisputably far away from intersections. Despite that, the project proponents have proposed for group housing scheme in Section A of the project at intersections 5/7 thereat on the peripheral road,” the SC observed.
If the project proponents (NICE/NECE) wants to deviate from the PTR, then, as per Article 7.1 of the FWA, they have to take prior written approval for such proposal from the State government before approaching the BMICAPA for plan approval as per the applicable laws, the SC said.
It further observed that “if such proposal was to be submitted to the State, it would be open to the State to examine the same on its own or refer the matter to the Empowered Committee constituted for resolving such issues, as envisaged in Article 4 of the FWA.”
“We may assume that the Empowered Committee may not agree with the proposal, as it may be of the view that the deviation is quite substantial and would disrupt the core objective of the Integrated Infrastructure Corridor Project), which has been designed with purpose of holistic and orderly development of the region as a whole,” the SC observed.
The companies will be required to resort to mechanism of resolution of disputes through arbitration as envisaged in the FWA in case the government declines to agree for the proposal for deviation, the court said.
