Cancellation of consultancy agreement signed with STUP Consultants
The Kerala High Court on Tuesday issued notice to the State government and Kannur International Airport Limited (KIAL) on a writ petition filed by STUP Consultants Private Limited challenging KIAL’s action in cancelling the consultancy agreement signed with the company for the construction of the airport.
Justice T.R. Ramachandran Nair also directed the State government and KIAL to file an affidavit in response to the writ petition within two weeks.
When the petition came up for hearing, counsel for the petitioner pleaded for staying the cancellation order. However, Additional Advocate-General K.A. Jaleel opposed the plea of the petitioner and submitted that STUP had obtained the contract, suppressing the fact that the Punjab government had blacklisted the company. He said the relevant documents would have to be collected from the Punjab government.
STUP contended that no sufficient opportunity had been accorded for the company to explain its stand before the agreement was cancelled.
It was only given two days, including a Sunday, to reply to a show cause notice issued by KIAL. It would have explained about blacklisting of the company with the support of documents, had it got sufficient time. Therefore, there was violation of the principles of natural justice.
It argued that though the Punjab government had blacklisted the company in 2007, the government agencies in Punjab continued to award it various projects. In fact, it still enjoyed the status of an empanelled consultant. According to the petitioner, debarring the company from taking up any project was bad in law.
The agreement had been scrapped after KIAL found that the company obtained the contract after misrepresenting the fact relating to eligibility norms. The eligibility criteria prescribed for the selection of the contractor was that the bidders should not have been blacklisted, or should not have failed to perform any of its previous contracts.
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