The High Court of Karnataka on Thursday stayed a decision taken by the then Chief Secretary in March 2013 to drop midway the project to construct a link road between Yeshwanthpur and Bellary Road passing through some areas of the University of Agricultural Sciences-Bangalore.
A vacation judge Justice Mohan M. Shantanagoudar passed the interim order on a petition filed by Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) questioning the March 30, 2013 decision of the then Chief Secretary S.V. Ranganath. The Chief Secretary had also directed BBMP to return the land in question to the UAS.
BBMP has contended that though the High Court, in its September 2011 verdict, had asked the State government to constitute a committee to resolve the dispute between the UAS and BBMP over development of the link road, the Chief Secretary had unilaterally taken a decision to drop the project midway without considering the BBMP’s view, resulting in loss of crores of rupees of the public.
The petition said that after the UAS Board had approved the link road project with certain modifications to protect biodiversity, BBMP had completed 70 per cent work on construction of 3.9-km road at a cost of Rs. 15.19 crore.
The High Court then put on hold the project for resolution of the dispute following a public interest litigation petition filed by a few former Vice-Chancellors of the UAS.
The BBMP’s standing committee during its meeting on January 22 and BBMP’s council on January 28, 2014 rejected the Chief Secretary’s decision and sought the review of the decision. However, the Chief Secretary on April 3, 2014, refused to review the decision, the petition stated, and alleged that the Chief Secretary, instead of resolving dispute on development of the road, had dropped the project.
