Chennai: The Madras high court has asked a senior officer from the public works department to be present on March 9 and explain the issue relating to the proposed construction of two law colleges on outskirts.
When a batch of petitions from advocate K. Balu and others relating to shifting the law college and opposing the move came up for hearing on Tuesday, the director of legal studies filed a compliance report.
In his report, the director elaborated the steps taken by the government for shifting the Dr Ambedkar government law college as per the recommendations of the Justice P. Shanmugam Commission of Inquiry.
The plans and estimates received from the PWD for the construction of two law colleges along with hostels were carefully examined by the government. The said plans and estimates have been prepared by the PWD in an extensive and elaborate manner by taking into account all the future requirements of the law colleges. Rs 115 crore was required for the construction of these two law colleges along with hostels.
The government informed the Director of Legal Studies to identify the works to be carried out in the first instance for the construction of the two law colleges on priority basis and obtain revised estimate for this purpose from the PWD based on the current rates.
The Director of legal studies has addressed to Chief Engineer, PWD to send revised estimates for the works to be carried out in the first instance for the construction of two law colleges. Appropriate action in this regard would be taken on receipt of the revised estimates from the PWD, he added.
In its order, the bench said, “We are faced with the problem that the plan was evolved and developed keeping in mind the future requirements. But the budget estimate is '115 crore for two colleges. It is stated that the government may not be able to spend the whole amount in one go and re-planning the exercise from the beginning. We are unable to appreciate it as future planning is a necessity.
A plan has to be made as to what is the extent of construction that has to be made since the construction itself will take time, it can be done in phases. This does not, to our mind, at least requires any re-planning other than requirement of deciding in how many phases the construction will be done and what construction will be done on what phase. We require the presence of a senior officer from the PWD, who can explain the issue to us”, the bench added.
