SC upholds Karnataka HC order on BMIC

State fined Rs 5 lakh as exemplary damages for frivolous litigation; project cost goes up to Rs 2,850cr.

The Supreme Court on Thursday cleared the Rs 2,250 crore Bangalore-Mysore four-lane express highway project and imposed exemplary costs of Rs 5 lakh on the Karnataka government for bringing the issue before it.

Upholding the Karnataka high court judgement, which had favoured the continuance of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project (BMICP), a bench comprising justice Ruma Pal, justice B N Srikrishna and justice Dalveer Bhandari said: "the entire appeal was with mala fide intention."

"There was no merit in the appeal filed by the Karnataka government and others. They came out wIth frivolous arguments against the project," justice Srikrishna, pronouncing the judgement for the bench, said.

"In the result, we find that the high court judgement is not liable to be interfered with," the bench said.

The court said that the Rs 5 lakh costs imposed on the Karnataka government and its institutions will be paid to the Nandi Infrastructure

Corridor Enterprise Limited (NICE). The developer had entered into an agreement with the state in 1997 for executing the project.

The bench also imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on JD(U) MLA C Madhuswami and Rama Reddy of the CPI and others who had appealed against the high court judgement of May 3, 2005. The high court had given a green signal to the project aimed at promoting an integrated infrastructure corridor between the two cities consisting of residential, industrial and commercial facilities covering 20,139 acres of land.

"We are extremely happy with the Supreme Court verdict. With the judgement, the hands of the chief minister of Karnataka will be further strengthened to help and expedite the completion of the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor project and to bring prosperity and economic upliftment of the people of Karnataka," a NICE spokesperson said.

The present government in the state led by chief minister H D Kumaraswamy, even before the SC verdict, was supporting BMICP along with other infrastructure projects, he said.

"We will now focus on completing the project expeditiously as a public private partnership along with the government of Karnataka," he added.

Reacting to the SC verdict, state law minister Basavarj Horatti said that the state government will consult legal experts and take further action in this regard.

Meanwhile, the cost of the project has gone up to Rs 2,850 crore. The company proposes to commission 9 km stretch of the Mysore-Kanakapura road in another 25 days.

The entire stretch of 62 kms being constructed in the first phase of the project will be thrown open for public use by end of August this year, the company spokesperson told Business Standard.