Theme Park inches towards arbitration

Kaushal averred that the dispute raised by the petitioner company can be addressed through arbitration and that the Court can hand over the case to arbitration for a solution. The amusement-cum-theme park was,in fact,the first mega-project envisaged during the tenure of the former UT Administrator,General (Retd) S F Rodrigues. Two other mega-projects,Filmcity and Medicity,have already been shelved while another one,Prideasia,has hit a dead end. After cancellation of the contract,the Administration had encashed the Rs 11 crore bank guarantee. The plea taken by the Administration in the case is that since the petitioner company had failed to fulfill the “condition precedent” set out in the contract,it was the sole discretion of the Administration to decide the future course of action. On the other hand,the petitioner company contended that the Administration did not afford the company a single opportunity to explain its side of the story.

This is the same case in which the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) booked three senior Chandigarh Administration officials,including current Haryana Home Secretary Krishna Mohan,for allegedly favouring a company in allotment of land for setting up a multi-crore amusement park in Sarangpur village here. The four booked after a year-long CBI inquiry are former UT Adviser Lalit Sharma (now retired),former UT Home Secretary Krishna Mohan,former UT Director (Tourism) Vivek Atray,at present on leave from his Haryana Government posting,and Unitech Builders,which was awarded the project.

The scam revolves around over 73 acres of land in the village that was allotted to Unitech for the project in December 2006. Last year the Home Ministry had ordered a Central Vigilance Commission inquiry into the matter and the CVC further recommended a thorough probe by the CBI into the role played by senior officers in “favouring” a particular company. The FIR was registered under Section 420 (cheating),201 (causing disappearance of evidence) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC and under Section 31(D) of the Prevention of Corruption Act,1988. After a rift between UT Adviser Pardeep Mehra and the then UT Administrator General S F Rodrigues,the former alleged irregularities in allotment of various mega projects and three mega-projects — Multimedia-cum-Film City,IT Park and theme-cum-amusement park — came under the scanner. The UT Administration allegedly ignored the general financial rules while inviting tenders and the highest bidder while allotting the project. It was also alleged that the project was allotted to Unitech at around 13 times less than what DLF had quoted.