Why all NHIDCL projects in Nagaland land up in litigation? asks High Court

KOHIMA— The Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench, on Wednesday directed the ministry of Road, Transport and Highways (MoRTH) to immediately take steps for acquisition of the remaining land required for construction of the National Highway-2 (NH-2) between Kohima to Mao Gate.

Hearing the Public Interest Litigation (suo moto) on the delay in upgrading the stretch of road connecting Nagaland and Manipur states, Justice Kakheto Sema expressed dissatisfaction with the progress of work and reprimanded the contractor for “trying to take the public for a ride”.

“The contractor, NHIDCL and everyone is in gloves, that is why we are not seeing daylight and it is the people who are suffering,” he said, adding their “blame game” is defeating the public interest.

While questioning why “all the projects undertaken by NHIDCL in Nagaland are landing up in litigation”, he said there is something “very wrong”.

A bench of Justices Mridul Kumar Kalita and Kakheto Sema also directed that “all steps taken by the respondent No. 1, i.e, the Union of India, under Section 3 of the National Highways Act, 1956, shall be placed before this Court by way of an affidavit on the next date fixed”.

The court further directed the state to render all assistance to the Centre in acquiring the land to complete the project.

Contractor counsel submitted before the court that 34.29% of the work has been completed, while the authority engineer counsel said that only 32.58% work has been completed.

In this regard, the court directed both the M/S Fortune Groups (contractor) and the authority engineer to file a detailed affidavit showing the progress of the work on the existing ROW (right of way) during the next date fixed.

The Court had on March 13 directed the contractor to complete the work by May 30, 2023 failing which substantial costs would be imposed and the NHIDCL would be directed to issue show cause notice to the contractor for black-listing.

However, the Supreme Court later stayed the order passed by the HC on the matter, a copy of which was produced before the court by contractor counsel Joshua Sheqi.

The HC has listed the matter after three weeks.

Related news: Complete National Highway-02 between Kohima and Mao Gate or face consequences, warns High Court