By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Monday absolved the Orissa government of charges of favouritism in awarding the contract to Jindal Strips for development of the Tangarpada chrome mines.
Partly setting aside the Orissa High Court order, a bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and P. Sathasivam, however, asked the state government to invite fresh proposals from the three original bidders.
The original bidders included Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO), Jindal Strips Limited, which initially bagged the contract in a joint venture with state-owned Industrial Development Corporation of Orissa Limited (IDCOL), and VISA Industries Limited.
Scrapping the Orissa court’s “observation and conclusions about malafides of the officials and their alleged favouritism”, the apex court bench ruled: “Certain conclusions of the high court are clearly indefensible.”
However, it held: “The observations relating to favouritism, so far as Jindal is concerned, are clearly without any foundation.”
The bench felt inclined to quash the high court ruling that had scrapped the mining deal between IDCOL and Jindals on a joint plea by TISCO and VISA.
It, however, restrained from doing so and asked the high court to reconsider the matter afresh as the proposal to develop the mine dated back to 2002 and was still stuck in court battles.
The Orissa government had granted lease of the Tangarpada mines in Dhenkanal district to IDCOL, which had subsequently invited bids for a joint venture partner to develop the chrome mines and take up mineral exploration, mining, mineral processing, value addition and marketing of the product.
The apex court bench asked the Orissa government to invite fresh and revised technical and financial bids from the three parties. It asked the government to take a final decision on awarding the contract by June 2008.
The bench granted freedom to the state government “to negotiate with the parties in the best interest of the state including generation of revenue and its overall development”.