BANGALORE: The Government has filed a review petition on the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor Project (BMICP) before the Supreme Court. The project has seen the coalition partners — the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — taking different stands.

While the Janata Dal (S) has sought takeover of the project, the BJP is wary of such a move and has maintained that the project promoters, Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise (NICE) Limited, should be asked to go ahead with the project minus the townships.

The Government, sources said, had taken the first step in trying to "regulate" the project by filing the review petition and, thereby, seeking a legal recourse to the issue.

For the last few days, the Government had been saying that it would seek a review of the Supreme Court order of April 20, 2006, giving a green signal to the project.

In case the Government fails as far as the review petition is concerned, then it would have an option to file a curative petition.

Plea

The petition has the State admitting to the court that it has been severely affected by the judgment, which has far reaching consequences on the public exchequer and the welfare of general public, including future generations. At stake, it says, are thousands of acres of Government land and those owned by private parties worth several crores which would be irretrievably lost and accrue as unwarranted private gain to the developer.

Grounds

The petition has raised several questions: What is the actual requirement of land for Phase I and II which question was neither directly nor substantially in issue earlier? This arose only subsequently when survey numbers were sought to be ascertained.

Whether on a true interpretation of the Frame Work Agreement (FWA) of April 3, 1997 read with the Project Technical Report of 1995, real estate activity could be taken up outside the townships or around the interchanges?

The petition says as per the statement of objections filed by NICE, the area required for peripheral road is only 1,600 acres, which includes link roads, service roads, service changes and interchanges.

It is stated that from the total extent of land acquired, 60 per cent will be utilised for the road and 40 per cent for township and for other purposes.

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