Hc Indicts Hudco Chairman Hudco Chairman

The court criticised two other members of the governing council of IHC for arbitrarily rescinding a contract worth crores of rupees with Old World Hospitality for providing service activity at the Rs 110-crore centre coming up in the heart of the capital.

Tata Energy Research Institute director R K Pachauri and Dinesh Mehta, director of National Institute of Urban Affairs, are the two other governing council members indicted.

Justice K Ramamoorthy in a 155-page judgment described the decision of the governing council to terminate the contract as void in law. The IHC after awarding the contract to Old World Hospitality had suddenly backed out of the contractual obligations for unexplained reasons.

 

The judge said he had no hesitation in coming to the conclusion that these three officers, Bhatnagar, Pachauri and Dinesh Mehta, have suppressed material facts and they have sworn false affidavits.

Justice Ramamoorthy noted the IHC governing council had not rejected the agreement.The three officers who had filed the affidavits in the light of the specific language of the agenda and the minutes would state the governing council did not consider any draft agreement on November 26, 1993, he said, describing it as a travesty of truth.

Passing strictures against the officers, the judge observed, the court is very much concerned with the property of the government and how it is being managed by officers like Bhatnagar, Pachauri and Dinesh Mehta, who had taken little care, nor did they realise the responsibility of placing all the materials before court.

Ramamoorthy said the centre was intended to be a hive for bringing to the country the latest industrial and technological and information honey and not for the (IHC) complex alone. In other words, the centre is for the benefit of the entire country.

He said if those entrusted with the task of implementing the project did not function properly, the object of the government in having such a complex for the improvement of the people, would remain metaphorical.

Referring to the alleged reasons for rescinding the contract, the judge said, it is against all cannons of principles of law, besides being contrary to the principles of natural justice. It is also against the principles of fairness.