SC directs probe in financial credentials of contractors

New Delhi, Nov 30 (UNI) Taking serious note of slow progress in the completion of Western Peripheral Expressway costing about Rs 3000 crores, the Supreme Court today directed the Monitoring Committee (MC) to hold a meeting forthwith to examine the financial capacity of the three members of the Consortium who are reportedly involved in some litigation among themselves.

The three members of the Consortium are M/s Madhucom, Apollo and DSC and the land measuring about 3500 acres is to be acquired for the project which is also called Kundli- Manesar-Palwal Expressway Project which was under the control of the state of Haryana.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Y K Sabharwal, and Justices Arijit Pasayat and S H Kapadia in its order said the decision of MC will be final on the issue of taking steps for ensuring timely completition of the project.

The court also rejected the plea of the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd (HSIDC) for a week's time to file an affidavit to place on record all the relevant facts on record. The bench told HSIDC Senior counsel Raju Ramchandran to go to the MC and let it take final decision and if the HSIDC is aggrieved by the decision of the MC it can always come to this court.

State of Haryana was against any direction to examine the financial credentials of the contractors after Amicus Curaie Senior counsel Harish Salve contended that financial wherewithal of the members of the consortium were under cloud and repeated extension have been granted to them for submitting Detailed Project Report(DPR) and initial deadline of June 30,2006 was extended till November 30,2006 which has again been extended till December 31,2006.

Justice Arijit Pasayat at one stage indicated that the apex court may direct the contractors to deposit Rs. 550 crores as security.

Following due process a Concessionaire namely M/s KMP Expressway Ltd was appointed and the Concession Agreement was also executed on January 31,2006. Land measuring 3282 acres has already been acquired and handed over to the Concessionaire. According to HSIDC Design reports prepared by the Concessionaire have already been submitted to the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) for formal approval covering NH-I,NH-8 and NH-10 for joint examinaion and the project was progressing ahead of the schedule.

According to Harish Salve the state of Haryana has already incurred a loss of Rs. 573 crores due to delay in the project.

The land cost of Rs. 1307 crores is to be shared by Delhi government(Rs.653.5 crore), Uttar Pradesh government(Rs326.75 crore) and state of Haryana (Rs. 326.75 crore).

The court in its order said," It is evident that even up to the extended period of time, the financial provision has not been achieved. We feel that present financial credentials / financial capacity of the contractors deserve to be examined by the MC. The MC can also examine the extension of time granted up to January 30,2007. It can also examine whether acquisition date for acquisition for traffic interchange requires to be preponed and steps if any required to be taken. We are also told that possibly litigation is going on between the members of the Consortium, the MC will also look into this aspect and its impact. The reason for rescheduling the date and fixing end of November for draft DPR , MC to look into these issues keeping in view the requirement of timely completion of the project." UNI AKS/SC RP RS1749