Thiruvananthapuram: The State government is likely to move the Supreme Court against the Kerala High Court verdict on the award of tenders for the Vizhinjam deepwater transhipment terminal project.

Highly placed sources said a decision would be taken as soon as the Law Department processed the judgment. Overcoming the legal hurdles would take some time, leading to a further delay in launching the work on the project.

A Division Bench of the High Court set aside the rejection of the technical and financial bids of the Mumbai-based Zoom Developers by the State government and Vizhinjam International Seaport Ltd. (VISL). The Bench directed that the bids be considered within 15 days. Proceedings related to the award of contract to the consortium led by Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd. should be kept in abeyance.

The government was asked to cancel the contract if the bids submitted by Zoom Developers were competitive.

The government had gone ahead with the tender process following the clearance from the Division Bench at the time of admitting the appeal petition filed by Zoom Developers against a Single Bench verdict setting aside its plea. The government, sources said, has gone ahead on the basis of the Division Bench’s observation that the appeal, while pending, would not stand in the way of the tendering process.

The State government, confident that it would get a favourable verdict, issued orders appointing the consortium of Lanco Kondapalli Power Ltd., Lanco Infratech Ltd., Hyderabad; and Pembinaan Redzai Sdn. Bhd. Malaysia, as a private partner. It approved the issue of Letter of Intent by the VISL. The letter was handed over to the representatives of the consortium at a function in Thiruvananthapuram in early November. The project has gone through several bad phases. The Union government earlier rejected security clearance to another consortium that won the bid in a global tender because of the presence of a Chinese company as one of the partners. Even as the State government was grappling with the court case, a controversy arose over the decision to acquire 1,048 acres of land for allied development.

The outlying panchayat areas witnessed a strong agitation against land acquisition, which did not figure in the original scheme of things. The government withdrew the land acquisition notification when the agitation threatened to derail the project. Sources said there were indications that Lanco might lose interest owing to the protracted legal battle.

Source : The Hindu