Hyderabad, July 29: Justice G Rohini of the Andhra Pradesh High Court today ordered status quo on the Hyderabad Metro Rail Project on a petition filed by the Maytas Consortium. However, the judge allowed the government to go ahead with the fresh global bid process for the project.
In her interim orders, Justice Rohini made it clear that the entire process would be subject to the final verdict of the court on the matter.
While posting further hearings on the issue to Aug 11, Justice Rohini asked the State government to file a counter by then.
Counsels for Maytas Consortium maintained that the government had forfeited their bid amount and bank guarantees to the tune of Rs 71 crore besides cancelling the agreement given to the consortium despite their request to extend time for achieving financial closures.
The collapse of Satyam following a financial scandal and the subsequent arrest and judicial remand of Ramalinga Raju and others as well as the inquiries by the CBI and other investigating agencies had affected the Maytas group too which was once owned by Ramalinga Raju family members. The Consortium led by Maytas, which bagged the Rs 12,132-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail Project, could not get the financial closure by March 17 this year as was agreed upon in the MoU.
The newly-constituted board of Maytas, however, asked the government to give another six months time to complete the financial closure.
The State government did not entertain the request and cancelled the MoU leading to the forfeiture of the bid amount and bank guarantees given by the Consortium. The Government called for fresh global bids on July 21.
Maytas’ new management, which announced that it would once again participate in the fresh bids, filed a writ petition in the High Court challenging the State Government’s action.
–Agencies–