The Madras High Court on Tuesday
upheld the licence awarded to a joint venture for providing comprehensive ground handling services to various airlines operating at the Chennai and Kolkata
airports in September 2009.
Dismissing two petitions, including
a public interest litigation petition, a Division Bench comprising Justices
Elipe Dharma Rao and Aruna Jagadeesan said a thorough scrutiny of the entire
material would not exhibit any unreasonableness on the part of the authorities.
There was no material to show that
the tender conditions were tailor-made to suit the successful bidder as had
been falsely alleged by petitioners.
As held by the Supreme Court, the
scope of interference by court in contractual matters was very limited.
Further, the AAI had fully justified its policy decision. No bias or malafide
by any authority or person connected to the entire episode of award of the contract
to the company had been established by petitioners.
In view of Supreme Court judgments
coupled with the CBI’s report that no substantial wrongful loss had been caused
to the AAI or the Centre, the Bench held that both the petitions were nothing
but vexatious litigations filed only to wrongfully restrain the successful
bidder from commencing its operations.
While Oveyam Ranjan, president,
Namadhu Dravida Iyakkam, and S.C.C. Anthony Pillai Labour Union here filed a
PIL, the Indian Airports Ground Handling Agents Association, Bangalore, filed
the other petition. The common allegations, among others, were eligibility
conditions of the tender of July 20, 2009 were tailor-made to suit Bhadra International (India) Ltd. and Novia International Consulting APS, a joint venture,
the successful bidder.
The Bench said from the material
placed on record, it could see that previously, there was no outside agency
licensed by AAI to do ground handling
work at airports in the country.
However, it was noticed that airline
companies, which were supposed to do ground handling themselves, were really
outsourcing the work to third parties without AAI’s consent or permission.
Hence, the AAI took a decision to streamline the process of ground handling.
Messrs. Justices Elipe Dharma Rao
and Aruna Jagadeesan said the object of the petitioner who had filed the PIL
appeared to be to stall the taking over of the airport ground handling work by
the successful bidder at the last minute. This conclusion was because the
contract for the work was awarded by a letter dated September 9, 2009, pursuant
to a public tender and security clearances were granted by the Bureau of Civil
Aviation Security in April and May 2010, but the petitioner waited till
December 2010 end to file the writ petition, since he knew that the successful
bidder was to commence the activities by January 1, 2011.
When the aggrieved parties, if any,
themselves kept mum, the Bench said it wondered as to why Mr. Ranjan,
completely a third party to the entire issue, should espouse the claim of the
ground handlers under the garb of PIL, that too posing himself as a “messiah of
the masses” and trying to interfere in a commercial contract matter. No PIL was
maintainable in commercial contract matters.
The Bench did not appreciate the
petitioners’ contention that only with an ulterior motive, Chennai and Kolkata
airports were clubbed together by officials.
In a commercial contract matter if a
free hand was not given to government, it would result in loss to the
exchequer.
