Permission granted by the Apex Court to withdraw writ petition; Senior lawyer writes to CJI in protest.

An important issue of judicial propriety and legality has arisen in the light of permission granted by the Supreme Court to withdraw a Writ Petition from the Mumbai High Court. While permitting the withdrawal, the Court has rendered the High Court judgement non est and set it aside. As a result, the damaging observations of the High Court, where it found on merits that the public property is given to a private party at grossly undervalued price has been completely erased.The Senior Lawyers of the Supreme Court are of the opinion that permission granted to withdraw, given the nature of the writ issued by the High Court, is not justifiable in law. 'Live Law' has confirmed reports that, in unprecedented manner, a respected Senior Lawyer has written to the Chief Justice of India, in protest.The issue arises out of allotment of 33.55 Hectares of prime Mumbai land, running into hundreds of crores for the development of 18 holes International Standard Golf Course and Country Club. The Bombay High Court, in a detailed judgment dated 19.12.2009, found that the decision to award contract was not bonafide and not in public interest. It also found that there was gross undervaluation of public property while fixing the reserved price. The High Court observed that there was lack of bonafide on the part of CIDCO, a public authority and somewhere in the management of CIDCO had made efforts to favor Mistry Construction Co. Pvt. Ltd, the winner of the contract . The High Court Disposed off the writ petition with the following scathing observations;“27……. Admittedly, the development work of the Golf Course has not yet been commenced and the investments allegedly made by the respondent no.4 beyond the lease amount are by way of engaging agencies and other expenditures. The impugned letter of allotment as well as the subsequent lease deed in favour of respondent no.4 is on the basis of the tender received in November, 2002 and the minimum reserved bid fixed at Rs. 33,00,33,000/- in the consent order dated 18/8/2004 was based on the bid made by the said respondent. It was not based on any contemporaneous record of valuation of the land admeasuring 35.55 H. It cannot be accepted that despite the lapse of six years the reserved bid of Rs. 33,00,33,000/- would be a justifiable lease amount for a public property and, in fact, it was a grossly undervalued reserved bid. Over a period of six years the land costs in and around Mubai have multiplied. Despite this reality, CIDCO proceeded to award the tender to respondent no.4 for a lease amount of Rs.33,00,33,000/-. We have noted with serious concern the actions of CIDCO either in allowing the respondent no.4 to file additional documents after the tenders are opened on 3/12/2002, inviting the order of consent dated 18/8/2004 from this court and allowing Writ Petition No. 908 to be withdrawn without notice to the other side and without disclosing to this court that the said petition was clubbed and was directed to be heard with this petition. Lack of bona fides on the part of CIDCO are, thus, writ large and there is some room to believe that somewhere in the management of CIDCO efforts were made to favour respondent no.4. We have no doubt that CIDCO failed to come to the expectations as a public body to maintain transparency and to follow the tender terms in the process of granting the letter of allotment, at all stages, to respondent no.4. For all these reasons the decision taken by CIDCO to award the bid to respondent no.4 is unsustainable and the letter of allotment dated 12/3/2009 is required to be quashed and set aside. While this petition was pending, CIDCO, as a public body, ought to have refrained from signing the lease deed on 22/8/2009 or at least ought to hae approached with a Civil Application in this petition seeking leave to sign the lease deed when it was fully aware that way back on 7/7/2005 this court had, while extending the time to implement the order dated 18/8/2004 by a period of four weeks, clarified that it was without prejudice to the rights of the petitioner in the instant petition.28. Once we have reached to the findings that even the fresh decision taken by CIDCO to award the tender to respondent no.4 is unsustainable, the obvious result, in the normal course, would be to direct CIDCO to consider all the three bids afresh. However, we are not inclined to follow this course in the peculiar facts and circumstances we have elaborately set out hereinabove. In addition to the appreciation of land in multiples, it is required to be noted that the land in pockets C to E is available for real estate development with a permissible FSI about three times and there is a further provision for enhancement of the same on payment of additional consideration that would be fixed by CIDCO. When a public property or the property of a public undertaking is being transferred/alienated, it must receive the best market price/lease amount. It is possible that the reserved bid, as ...

Permission granted by the Apex Court to withdraw writ petition; Senior lawyer writes to CJI in protest.

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