The Hindu : New Delhi News : Permission sought to cancel agreement with NICE

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Tuesday, Oct 02, 2007
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New Delhi

Permission sought to cancel agreement with NICE

J. Venkatesan

Karnataka files fresh petition in the Supreme Court

New Delhi: The Karnataka Government on Monday moved the Supreme Court seeking permission to cancel the agreement entered into with Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises (NICE) for the implementation of the Bangalore Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project.

In a fresh petition filed by its counsel Sanjay Hegde, the State submitted that world over governments exercise the rights of eminent domain for public benefit and exercise the contractual rights in a manner that would bring maximum benefits to the State. It said there were several precedents where the project sought to be implemented by private agencies were either re-structured, cancelled or implemented through other agencies if either the change in circumstances make the project onerous to the State or in view of certain advanced technology or other such beneficial changes the projects had lost their attractiveness in the existing form.

The petition said that a proposal had been received recently from a consortium called Asian Infrastructure Consortium led by a Malaysia-based monorail company (currently being examined by the Government) which was requested by the Malaysian Government to implement the monorail project in Kuala Lumpur, which was originally to be completed by Hitachi Corporation.

The petition said that even though the State was convinced of the benefits to it in restructuring and re-awarding the contract through alternative means and having absolute rights to cancel the contract, still it was seeking permission from the court to exercise its contractual rights in a fair manner. It sought permission to exercise its contractual rights under the Framework Agreement dated April 3, 1997 and to implement the project through alternative means.

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