Thre controversial mega projects — Amusement-cum-Theme Park, Film city and Prideasia — have gone for arbitration, real estate giants have locked horns with the Chandigarh Administration over their hundreds of crore of rupees at stake.
Chandigarh Administration has forfeited around Rs 600 crore deposited by Parsvnath Developers and Unitech.The three mega projects— conceptualised and allotted during the regime of former UT Administrator SF Rodrigues— got mired in controversies in the late 2009.
In case of Filmcity, Parsvnath has filed a claim of over Rs 50 crore, contesting which the Chandigarh Administration has said the developer should have completed the project within the stipulated period of two years.In case of Prideasia too, the same developer’s over Rs 550 crore is at stake, which the Chandigarh Housing Board (CHB) has forfeited. The money deposited in the escrow account, jointly maintained by the CHB and Parsvnath, was sealed by the board.
Out of this money, the CHB has already transferred Rs 210 crore to the Consolidated Fund of India, as instructed in the special audit conducted by a team of officials from the Ministry of Home Affairs.
The Amusement-cum-Theme Park is the recent addition in the list of mega projects going for arbitration. The Punjab and Haryana High Court has sought names of the three arbitrators from Unitech and Chandigarh Administration.
Unitech has challenged the Administration’s decision to terminate the project. In this case, too, the Administration has forfeited an amount of around Rs 5.4 crore, deposited by Unitech as first installment towards the project. Subsequently, after terminating the project, the Administration also encashed the bank guarantee of Rs 11 crore given by the developer.
While the Administration could never provide the developer an encumbrance-free land, Unitech did not deposit the second installment and the project got caught up in one controversy after the other, resulting in its termination last year.
The arbitration tribunals will decide the fate of these three projects. Though the CBI has registered a criminal case against three top bureaucrats involved in the Theme Park project, the developer still has the right to adopt the arbitration channel as a civil remedy.
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