Supreme Court slams Congress MLA for PIL over sports complex

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court slammed a Gujarat Congress MLA for filing a PIL challenging the terms and conditions of land allotment to an MNC for constructing state-of-the-art sports complexes in the state long after completion of the project and said such misuse of PILs could potentially stall investments in India.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud rejected the appeal filed by Babubhai Meghaji Shah, who had appealed against Gujarat High Court’s decision to reject his PIL questioning the state government’s decision to allot land in Ahmedabad to SE TransStadia for construction of a sports complex, which could be converted from an outdoor stadium to an indoor one in six minutes.

Appearing for Shah, senior advocate C U Singh said according to the valuation of the land by the revenue department, the state should have got Rs 4 crore as annual lease rent but the state government asked for a mere Rs 25 lakh rent per year. “Petitioner is not against the stadium but it is not late to recover market rent from the allotted land,” he said.


The MNC, through senior advocate Harish Salve, pointed out that the agreement between the state government and SE TransStadia, which had signed the MoU in 2009 at the Vibrant Gujarat Summit, provided that the MNC would utilise 2% of its annual gross revenue or Rs 2 crore, whichever was higher, each year for development of sports in the state.

He said the agreement was to build sports complexes on the ‘hub and spoke’ model — Ahmedabad was to have the largest sports complex while smaller complexes in Vadodara, Surat, Rajkot, Jamnagar, Bhavnagar and Bhuj would help scout talent, provide them training facilities and organise tournaments. Salve said the project was completed and several tournaments were held.

Questioning the Congress MLA’s PIL, the bench said, “How far can courts go? PILs were devised as a mode to address the grievances of the poor and underprivileged who had no access to justice. But now it has gone on to investigate scams and many other fields. Now, it is used to question whether there should be a sports facility or not. You are a political personality, yet you file a PIL. The project was announced after the Vibrant Gujarat Summit. Were you not aware then? Why was the PIL filed after the completion of the project?”

The bench added, “Investors come to build infrastructure with an assured return on their investment. If we interfere in the project after its completion, tell us how will a state attract investment?” It dismissed the petition.