New Delhi: The wish of former managers of now-shut Chanakya cinema to be associated with the new avtaar of the theatre is unlikely to be fulfilled.
The Delhi High Court has rejected their plea to direct the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to let them participate in a global tender floated for building a mall and multiplex at the site of the theatre which was a major attraction for Capital's college students and cine-goers for decades.
Dismissing a petition filed by M/s Aggarwal and Modi Enterprises (Cinema Project Pvt Ltd) seeking a direction restraining NDMC from floating the global tender for the multiplex, a Division Bench of Justice Mukul Mudgal and Justice Manmohan imposed a cost of Rs 50,000 on the hall owners.
In a judgment on Friday, the Bench gave a green signal to NDMC to float the global tender and said "NDMC by following the two bid system has attempted to ensure that there is real competition between the best qualified firms so that world class infrastructural facilities can be created."
"... Petition is without any merit and is dismissed with cost of Rs 50,000 to be paid to Prime Minister's relief fund," the Bench said in the judgment. Challenging the NDMC's tender through a petition, the former managers of the theatre sought the court's intervention in their bid to participate in the auctioning and submitted that NDMC should put the two-acre plot for public auction.
It was alleged that the NDMC has violated its own Act by floating a global tender and inviting only reputed real estate developers for the construction of the multiplex.
