No Reason To Interfere: Kerala HC Dismisses Leader Of Opposition V.D. Satheesan’s Plea Challenging KFON Project

The Kerala High Court dismissed the writ petition filed by V.D. Satheesan, the Leader of Opposition (LoP) of the Kerala Legislative Assembly.

Satheesan had challenged the award of the contract for implementation of the Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) project to the consortium comprising of Bharat Electronics Limited, RailTel Corporation of India Limited, Sobha Renaissance Information Technology Pvt. Ltd., and LS Cable India Private Limited (BEL Consortium) for an amount of Rs. 1,628.35 Crores, after finding their quote to be the lowest among the three qualified consortium bidders that had participated in the tender process.

A Division Bench of Justice A.K. Jayasankaran Nambiar and Justice Syam Kumar V.M. remarked, “… we see no reason to interfere with the decisions taken by the respondents that are impugned in this writ petition or to interdict the respondents from implementing the project. We also do not see it necessary to entrust an investigation into the allegations raised by the petitioner to the CBI at this stage. As already noticed above, the report of the CAG, as and when made available, can certainly be scrutinized by the Legislature/PAC and appropriate action taken based on their comments thereon.”

Senior Advocate George Poonthottam represented the petitioner while Advocate General K. Gopalakrishna Kurup represented the respondents.

Facts of the Case -

The prayers in the writ petition were essentially to call for the records leading to a sanction order and to quash the same, as also to quash all the consequential orders and decisions. There was a further prayer for a Writ of Mandamus to direct the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate an enquiry into the KFON project, including the Project Monitoring Agency tender and the tenders for selecting the Managed Service Provider (MSP) and the Internet Service Provider (ISP) for KFON. The writ petition was filed when the KFON project was well underway in terms of implementation. The project had received the necessary administrative sanction from the State Government in 2017. The tender process for the project was initiated by Kerala Fibre Optic Network Limited when a Request for Proposals (RFP) was published for selection of a Project Monitoring Agency.

The technical evaluation of the received tenders commenced in 2018 and the Financial bids were opened. The BEL Consortium was identified as the lowest bidder, and after negotiating with them, they were appointed as the Project Monitoring Agency by accepting their offer of Rs. 1,628.35 Crores. Shortly thereafter, a Master Service Agreement was entered between Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Limited (KSITIL) on behalf of Kerala Fibre Optic Network Limited and BEL. The formal approval of the State Government to the selection of BEL Consortium was obtained in 2019. The writ petition was filed more than four years after the work had started on the KFON project.

The High Court in the above context of the case observed, “It is by now well settled through a catena of decisions of the Supreme Court that the High Court cannot mechanically direct a CBI investigation based on allegations made in a writ petition. Rather, the court has to record a prima facie case, based on the material on record, against the person against whom such CBI enquiry is ordered.”

The Court added that the KFON project appears to be well on course towards realisation of its objectives of (i) setting up a State-wide core optical fibre network that would provide connectivity to 30,000 + Government institutions and (ii) providing free internet to 20 Lakh economically backward families and subsidised internet for others by leveraging the KFON infrastructure.

“… we are told that as of now connectivity through the optical fibre network already laid under the project, has been provided to 20,336 Government offices and free internet has been provided to 5484 economically backward families till date”, it said.

The Court concluded that no grounds have been made out, warranting an interference with the KFON project under Article 226 of the Constitution.

Accordingly, the High Court dismissed the writ petition.

Cause Title- V.D. Satheesan M.L.A. v. The State of Kerala & Ors. (Neutral Citation: 2024:KER:69161)

Appearance:

Petitioner: Senior Advocate George Poonthottam, Advocates Nisha George, A.L. Navaneeth Krishnan, J. Vishnu, Kavya Varma M. M., Anshin K.K., and Sidharth R. Wariyar.

Respondents: Advocate General K. Gopalakrishna Kurup, State Attornery N. Manoj Kumar, Senior Government Pleader V. Manu, Advocates K.A. Abdul Salam, Antony Mukkath, Regi Mathew, B. Pramod, SPP Sreelal N. Warrier, and Advocate M.A. Zohra.

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