BENGALURU: Accepting a recommendation by a committee chairman to disband the panel to address the issues of Dr Shivarama Karanth Layout, the Karnataka High Court said it is necessary to put a halt to any further expenditure, as close to Rs 18 crore has already been spent on the proceedings of the panel.
The committee was formed by the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA), for execution of work assigned to it by the apex court in the past three years.
“What is spent is not the money of the committee, nor the BDA, it is public money. Therefore, we are of the considered view to accept what is expressed by the chairman of the committee to dissolve the committee, as substantive work has already been done by it, and work can be executed by the BDA with monitoring by this Bench,” said a special division bench of Justice Krishna S Dixit and Justice M Nagaprasanna, while noting that the cost would be zero.
The Bench directed the Registrar General to make an inventory of records on the premises of the panel, and the Registrar (Computers) to take security of the data that is already in the system and transfer it to an independent system maintained by the high court.
The Bench also ordered that all litigation concerning Karanth Layout pending before the respective benches, or orders passed by the panel from time to time, be placed before it for hearing. The Special Division Bench, constituted as per orders of the Supreme Court, passed the interim order to maintain status quo of the layout, except to continue ongoing development activities, on the last date of the hearing. It also directed the Registrar General to lock the panel’s office. This was after BDA’s counsel submitted that the panel did not hand over documents/data and locked the premises.
The committee chairman, Justice A V Chandrashekar, former HC judge, recommended the Supreme Court to dissolve the panel. However, the two members of the panel, former BDA commissioner Jayakar Jerome and former DGP S T Ramesh, had wanted the panel to continue for another six months.
Advocate-General Shashikiran Shetty, appearing for BDA, submitted that an amount of Rs 17.95 crore is the expenditure incurred towards the proceedings of the committee. This is inclusive of salaries and Rs 3 crore spent as subscription to an agency for development and maintenance of data on a system where all proceedings are stored.