HC cancels Himachal hydel projects on Rel Infra plea

The Himachal Pradesh High Court today ordered cancellation of two hydropower projects on River Satluj, alloted to Netherlands-based company Brakel Corporation N V in 2006, holding that it was not qualified to bid.    

The court, hearing a petition filed by Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Infrastructure (Rel Infra), also directed the state government to choose other eligible bidders from the last tender floated by the then Congress government or call for fresh bids.    

State Advocate General R K Baba said that the court directed the government to make fresh allotment of the two projects of 480 mega watt each in four weeks, by either re-advertising it or choosing between the parties in the old bid.    

A division bench of Justice Deepak Gupta and Justice V K Ahuja also imposed Rs 1 lakh as costs on Brakel, whose counsel Sanjeev Bhusan said that his client would appeal in the Supreme Court.

Rel Infra, which was one of the bidders for the projects, had alleged that Brakel was "not qualified to participate in the tender because it had no consortium partners and, in fact, was a company incorporated with $1 as capital.    

"The purported consortium members were fabricated and... never authorised Brakel Corp to participate in the tender. However, the government after overlooking all these aspects had not only qualified Brakel, but had awarded the project to them."

The court had on July 2 reserved its order on the Rel Infra petition.     

The judgement came as a jolt to the Netherlands-based Brakel, which had deposited about Rs 290 crore to the state government for the two projects.     

Bhusan said the company had deposited an upfront money of Rs 174 crore with the state government in January 2008. An additional Rs 24 crore was deposited by the company as interest for one year delay in depositing the upfront money.     

He added Brakel had got the project through open bid as the company had quoted the highest upfront money for the two projects.     

The Detailed Project Report for the plants was also ready before today's court judgement, he added.

Bhusan added the estimated cost of the two projects was Rs 8,000 crore and it was to be completed in five years from the date of allotment (December 2, 2006).