Date:21/07/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/07/21/stories/2005072101191900.htm

Back Kerala HC quashes petition against Smart City project

K.C. Gopakumar

Kochi , July 20

THE Kerala High Court on Wednesday dismissed at the admission stage itself the writ petition seeking to restrain the State Government from transferring Infopark Kochi to the Dubai Internet City or any other person.

The petition, filed by Mr N. Venugopal, General Secretary, National Congress (Indira), sought a direction to the State Government to produce the terms and conditions agreed between the Government and the Dubai Internet City for the Smart City project.

The petitioner said the Government had no authority to sell an autonomous body such as Infopark Kochi, which has been successfully working, to a single private party from abroad.

The Infopark is not a loss-making public sector undertaking. The petitioner alleged that Dubai Internet City's demand that IT companies be not allowed to come up between Alappuzha and Kozhikode was aimed at monopolising the IT sector facilities available in Kochi. If this was allowed to happen, Smart City will sound the death knell of Kerala's IT dreams.

The Government's attempt to sell/transfer Infopark Kochi to Dubai Internet City for a paltry sum agreed in a private negotiation was malafide and arbitrary, the petitioner alleged.

Dismissing the petition, the Division Bench comprising the Chief Justice, Mr Rajeev Gupta, and Mr Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan observed that the averments in the writ petition were based on newspaper reports. That apart, the project is still at the stage of negotiation and nothing has been finalised so far. So, the court could not entertain the petition.

Campus recruitment: The same Division Bench on Wednesday upheld the order issued by the Union Government in 2000 allowing public sector units to appoint personnel through campus recruitment and dismissed a petition filed by the Federation of Central Government SC/ST Employees (Kerala), Kochin Refineries Ltd (KRL) Unit, challenging the campus recruitment conducted by KRL.

Dismissing the petition, the judges said that campus recruitment was a method adopted to recruit personnel from campuses even before a candidate passed out of college.

The court observed that the areas reserved exclusively for the State sector had now opened up to the private sector following liberalisation. So, in selected areas where public sector units have to compete with MNCs and private companies in the current economic scenario, methods like campus recruitment may be resorted to.

The court added that it could not say that the campus recruitment adopted by KRL was illegal unless and until it was shown that there was arbitrariness in the selection process.

Besides, the petitioner's grievances were against the method of recruitment and not the manner in which it was being conducted. No candidate who was affected by the campus recruitment had approached the court.