Roads concretisation: Bombay HC relief to contractor in plea challenging contract termination by BMC
The Court, while hearing a plea by M/s Roadway Solutions Infra Limited (RSIL) against the November 9 notice for termination of contract issued by the BMC, also sought a detailed affidavit in reply to the plea from the civic body by January 5.
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The BMC had earlier this month issued a notice of termination of contract to RSIL, one of the five contractors, who were awarded the ambitious Rs 6,000 crore project to concretise 397 km of roads in Mumbai. In an interim relief to a firm whose contract of over Rs. 1233 crore for improvement and concretisation of various roads in Mumbai was terminated by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) earlier this month, the Bombay High Court on Thursday restrained the civic body from taking any coercive or punitive action against the firm till January 9.
The Court, while hearing a plea by M/s Roadway Solutions Infra Limited (RSIL) against the November 9 notice for termination of contract issued by the BMC, also sought a detailed affidavit in reply to the plea from the civic body by January 5.
The firm had approached the Court claiming that the BMC’s action was motivated based on a complaint of a former corporator, arbitrary and issued in mala fide manner.
The firm had apprehended imposition of penalties and other financial actions on it by the civic body.
The BMC had earlier this month issued a notice of termination of contract to RSIL, one of the five contractors, who were awarded the ambitious Rs 6,000 crore project to concretise 397 km of roads in Mumbai.
The civic body on October 9, citing delay in start of work, had issued show-cause notice to the petitioner, to which it responded on October 16. However, the petitioner was unable to attend the hearing as its officials were attending to revenue issues outside Mumbai and had sought a further date.
“Quite surprisingly, the application for adjournment was refused and instead the impugned termination came to be issued,” the bench noted, adding that the BMC gave at least fourteen different reasons for the termination of contract.
Senior advocate Janak Dwarkadas for the RSIL argued that further progress in the project was stalled due to delay on the part of the civic body and traffic police department despite sufficient efforts taken by the petitioner. Dwarkadas also argued that BMC failed to give a reasonable hearing to the petitioner and submitted that a public judicial review of the impugned notice was required.
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