HC stays district court's order on water utility firm

AURANGABAD: The civic body received a shot in the arm on Wednesday when the Aurangabad bench of the high court stayed the district court's verdict that was delivered on Tuesday.
The Aurangabad Municipal Corporation had scrapped the Rs 792 crore agreement that it had reached with the Aurangabad Water Utility Company, following which the company had approached the district court which ordered the AMC on Tuesday to not disturb the water distribution process currently in possession of the company.
Challenging the district court order, the civic body approached the high court on Wednesday. "While granting an interim stay on the district court judgement, Justice T V Nalawade observed that prima facie the civic body has the right to terminate the agreement," said lawyer Anil Bajaj, who represented the AMC. The next hearing on this plea has been placed on October 21.
It may be noted that several public interest litigations (PILs) were pending with the Aurangabad bench of the Bombay high court which are also likely to come up for hearing on October 21.
During the hearing, the civic body said that they had snapped the agreement with the water utility company on June 30 and also served it a final termination notice on September 30, officially terminating the contract that was signed in 2011 to supply water to the city on public private partnership (PPP) model. The company had also issued a letter in this regard citing many reasons including the violation of provisions of the contract.
Earlier, many social activists had challenged the Rs 792 'Samantar' parallel pipeline project. However, during course of hearing, the high court had issued many directions to the civic body in this regard. At one point the high court even observed that "the issues raised in the petitions cover larger canvas of legality and validity of action of allotment of tender in favour of water utility company, as well as legality, validity and correctness of the concession agreement entered into between municipal corporation and the concessioner on September 22, 2011."
The Public Interest Litigations (PILs) were filed by several experts and activists including Rajendra Datey-Patil and Vijay Diwan seeking direction to the civic body and the government to scrap Rs 792 crore public private partnership (PPP) model for the water scheme. The government as well as the civic body administration had given their report against the water utility company dubbing contract as unviable and unfavourable to the civic body.
The petitioners including Diwan, Patil, Rajendra Lokhande and Vijay Shirsath had also sought direction from the civic body as well as the state government to scrap the PPP model arguing that the move was against the right to life guaranteed by the Constitution. They had also pointed out that it was mandatory on the part of the civic body according to the provisions of the municipal corporation act to supply water to the residents. They had requested that either AMC or a government agency should on its own implement the Rs 792 crore scheme.