Chennai: A plea has been made in the Madras High Court to stay the tender notification dated January 11, 2018, calling for the tender for the construction of a memorial for former Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa at Marina beach.
In his affidavit, advocate S. Doraisamy also sought to implead the Superintending Engineer, PWD as a party Respondent in the petition filed by him.
According to Doraisamy, he had filed a petition to direct the Chennai corporation to remove the dead body of Jayalalithaa from the Chennai Marina Beach situated behind the memorial of M.G. Ramachandran and bury the dead body other than the coastal area and also direction not to permit the authorities to raise any construction in the name of a memorial to Jayalalithaa at Marina Beach.
When his petition came up for hearing on August 18, 2017, the court had admitted the petition and ordered notice of the authorities. He had also filed an interim application to restrain the authorities from making any construction of a memorial for Jayalalithaa at Marina Beach pending disposal of his petition.
Except for Principal secretary to the government, Tamil development and Information department, no other authorities had filed the counter-affidavits as on date.
His petition was periodically listed before the court and yet to be taken up for final disposal. Finally, his petition was listed before the court on January 29, 2018, and the same was adjourned to February 16 at the request made by another petitioner for the reason to file a reply to the counter affidavit filed with his petition.
In the meanwhile, the Superintending Engineer, PWD issued a notification, dated January 11, 2018, calling for the tender for construction of a memorial for Jayalalithaa.
As per the tender notification, the approximate value of work was '43.63 crore and the tender schedule can be obtained from PWD from January 18 to February 6.
The filled up tender will be received up to February 7 and will be opened on the same day.
The prayer in his petition was not to raise any construction in the name of the memorial to Jayalalithaa in the said place.
If the tender was awarded, the construction work will be commenced immediately, and hence the purpose of filing the petition would be defeated and will become infructuous. Hence, it has been just and necessary to stay the tender process, he added.
