New Delhi, August 1, 2013: The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected a plea challenging the fresh tender process initiated by the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in 2012 for the City’s solid waste disposal, estimated to be a Rs 1200-crore enterprise.
A three-judge bench presided over by Justice B S Chauhan did not find any merit in the batch of special leave petitions filed by B R Ganesh and others against an order passed by the Karnataka High Court on April 26.
The HC’s division bench had allowed BBMP to go ahead with the process to invite bids for garbage collection, segregation, transportation and disposal as per its notification issued on September 18, 2012.
The apex court refused to intervene in the process, on the plea made by Ganesh and others, who had raised several procedural defects in BBMP’s initiative.
Advocate Lakshminarayan represented the petitioners. Senior advocate Vishwanath Shetty and advocate E C Vidyasagar appeared for BBMP.
Besides raising other grounds, the petitioners had challenged the tender notification of September 18, 2012, by claiming that only four days were made available for them to file their bids as there was a public holiday on September 19, an all-India bandh on September 20 and the e-portal was having a technical problem on the next date.
The HC, even after finding fault with BBMP’s process, decided to give it green signal in view of the larger public interest.
“The government seems to be helpless. Judicial intervention by way of interim orders has added to the misery. In the result, Bangalore, ‘the Garden City of India’ has become a ‘Garbage City’. Roughly about Rs 1,200 crore is spent annually towards collection, segregation and transportation of this municipal solid waste. Therefore, it is a big business. Naturally, everyone concerned would like to have their share of the cake. Even after having their share, the City is not clean and the public are at the receiving end. This money is squandered, cartels are thriving. It has become an additional source of income to others who are partners in this enterprise,” the division bench had observed.
The HC gave liberty to authorities to frame rules as stipulated in the Municipal Solid Wastes (Management and Handling) Rules, 2000.
