[K-FON Project] Kerala High Court Questions Congress Leader VD Satheeshan’s Motives In His Plea On K-Fon Project Seeking CBI Probe
(Judicial Quest News Network)
The Kerala High Court on Monday has raised concerns over the motives of the PIL filed by Opposition leader and Congress MLA VD Satheesan regarding the alleged corruption in Kerala Fibre Optic Network (K-FON) project.
The Court asked the leader whether it was a publicity interest or public interest.
A division bench comprising of Chief Justice AJ Desai and Justice VG Arun said that PIL seemedmore in the nature of “publicity interest litigation” since it was filed nearly after four years of the tneder for the project was issued..
K-FON is an infrastructural project of the state government for providing universal basic internet facilities to all citizens. The plea was filed raising allegations of illegalities, irregularities, and corruption committed by the K-FON project.
The KFON project was publicised by the Government as an infrastructure project designed to bridge the digital divide in the State of Kerala.
However, in reality, the project and all contracts arising from it were divided among proxies of the people controlling the Government. The KFON project involves several contracts/tenders under it. All of the said tenders have gone to a single beneficiary company which is closely connected with persons in power. The said company has re-routed the work and financial benefits involved in the project to another company which is associated with the same person in power.
It is submitted that for the running of the KFON project, KSITIL formed a new Joint venture company (Special Purpose Vehicle, SPV for short), the Kerala Fibre Optic Network Limited for implementation of the K-FON project KFON Ltd. with 49% Kerala State Electricity Board (‘KSEB’, for short) share and 2% Government share was formed by G.O. (MS)No.10/2018/ITD dated 10.05.2018. As per the same, KSEBL was to be the Bid process coordinator for implementing the Power System Development Fund (PSDF) funded Optical Ground Wire (OPGW) fibre infrastructure to ensure timely completion of the KFON project with single point co-ordination.
VD Satheeshan sought an order for quashing the Government orders from the court to the CBI to initiate an enquiry into the K-FON project.
He also sought an order for quashing the Government order issued by the Electronics and IT department of the Stae which sanctioned the selection of implementation agency of K-FON, M/s Bel Consortium.
The Counsel for the petitioner Senior Advocate George Poonthottamsubmiited that an enquiry has to be conducted regarding the issuance of contract toSibha Reniassance Information Technology Private Limited (SRIT) based on the tender issued in 2017,since the allegations has come into the public domain only now.
It is submitted that however, the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG for short) enquiry into the same revealed that KSEBL which is yet another partner in KFON had found that LS Cable had no ability or capacity to manufacture these OPGWs in their factory in Haryana. RFP Vol.I Clause 5.2 under SI. No.16 of Prequalification Criteria insists that the OPGWs should satisfy the criteria of Make in India whereby the local content of the OPGW should be 55% Indian made. In the instant case, KSEBL had made strong reservations against using LS cable’s OPGW citing RFP condition violation and issues in quality assurance. However, KSITIL accepted a self-serving certificate from a Chartered accountant which stated that the Indian content in the OPGWs supplied by LS cable was 58% with 42% from TGG, China.
The plea has been moved by Advocates Nisha George, A L Navneeth Krishna, J Vishnu, Kavya Varma M M, AnshinK K and Sidharth R Wariyar.
The matter has been posted after three weeks.
