Kerala - Kochi   

Smart City: Court asks Government to examine NGO's plea

Staff Reporter

Petition against Smart City project `Seek expert opinion before signing the accord'

Kochi: A Division Bench of the Kerala High Court on Monday directed the State Government to examine the representation given by the Adhinivesa Prathirodha Samithi, a non-government organisation, highlighting various issues in connection with the Smart City project, before the memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed and it became a binding agreement.

The Bench comprising Chief Justice V.K. Bali and Justice S. Siri Jagan also ordered that the representation be examined by some responsible officers well versed in the subject matter of the agreement.

The court further directed that the agreement should be signed only when the terms and conditions of the MoU were cleared by the officers.

The court, however, dismissed the plea of the Samithi that the decision to sign the MoU with the Dubai Internet City (DIC) be kept in abeyance till the clauses inimical to the State in the MoU were removed.

According to the petitioner, the price fixed for the Infopark to be handed over to the DIC for setting up the Smart City was too low. The project was coming up on 298.27 acres of the Infopark. The proposal to start the project by leasing the land of Infopark was illegal.

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy had announced that the DIC was an institution of the Government of Dubai and that handing over of the Infopark was an integral part of the agreement with the DIC. He had also announced that 33,000 new jobs would be created. Offering 33,000 jobs with salary of Rs.7.500 a month for software engineers and Rs.4,500 for support staff was unrealistic and impracticable in terms of the prevailing salary. Besides, the DIC was not an institution of the Dubai Government, the petitioner pointed out.

The court issued the direction for examining the representation of the non-government organisation considering the fact that the organisation's president was M.N. Vijayan, a renowned thinker, and its secretary V.P. Vasudevan, an academician of repute.

The court, however, dismissed the organisation's petition observing that it was premature.

The Government Pleader submitted that there was enough scope for reworking the terms and conditions of the MoU. The court dismissed the petition with the right to petitioner to file a fresh writ petition for the same cause of action if the petitioner's grievances were not redressed even after the matter was examined by an expert.

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