Hyderabad: Giving major relief to the Telangana state government, the Hyderabad High Court on Tuesday paved way to it for going ahead with finalisation tender process of its prestigious Rs 35,000-crore Palamuru-Ranga Reddy lift irrigation scheme without considering technical advice and guidelines given by the Engineering Staff College of India.
A division bench comprising acting Chief Justice Dilip B. Bhosale and Justice P. Naveen Rao dismissed a PIL by BJP leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy alleging irregularities and illegalities in the process of framing of tender guidelines and the notifications and ignoring ESCI’s advise. He said the government had paid Rs 5.70 crore to the ESCI to prepare a detailed project report and Rs 6 crore for seeking technical advice but ignored them.
The bench asked whether the petitioner had any expertise to demonstrate a single condition that is prejudicial or in favour of a particular contractor. It said without concrete proof to show that the technical advice of the ESCI was wilfully omitted to benefit a contractor it would not intervene in the matter. The bench advised the petitioner’s counsel not to make vague allegations and said it was ,not impressed with the petitioner's submissions.
Telangana advocate general K Ramakrishna Reddy while citing Supreme Court judgements, contended that the government can fix its own terms and conditions for executing mega projects and the cost would not be the sole criteria to allot the work.
