Construction of Kannur court: SC’s stay on Kerala HC order favouring ‘Uralungal’ prevails

NewDelhi: The stay order issued by the Supreme Court on the Kerala High Court’s decision to hand over the contract of the construction of the Kannur court to the Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society will continue to prevail. The decision was taken by the SC bench comprising JK Maheswari and KV Viswanathan. The hearing of the petition against granting contract to Uralungal is scheduled on November 7.      

It should be noted that the lowest quotation for the construction of the Kannur court was submitted by AM Mohammed Ali’s Nirman Constructions. However, the Kerala High Court division bench ordered to hand over the construction of the building to the Uralungal Labour Society which quoted 7.10 pc higher price than the Nirman Constructions. Following this, the Supreme Court issued a stay order after considering a petition filed against the Kerala High Court’s decision to hand over the contract of the construction of the Kannur court to the Uralungal  co-operative society. The court had even raised the question of how the contract was handed over to Uralungal when a private company had quoted a lower price. 

In the court, advocates Dushyant Dave and Haris Beeran, who had appeared on behalf of Nirman constructions, argued that the Kerala government was earlier not in favour of handing over the construction contract to Uralungal, the advocates accused the government of toppling its stand on the issue at the SC, shockingly contradictory to its statements in the single and division bench of the Kerala HC. 

Advocates Neeraj Kishan Kaul, MF Philip, and Shyam Kumar appeared for Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society in the case. Meanwhile, advocate V Giri and standing counsel CK Sasi appeared on behalf of the state government.

The Kerala government had filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court yesterday stating that it owns 82 pc of the shares of the Uralungal Labour Contract Co-operative Society (ULCCS). In the affidavit, it was also mentioned that the co-operative society has been given permission to take up projects without any sort of financial constraints.