The Supreme Court dismissed the Kerala government’s plea challenging the Kerala High Court judgment allowing Adani Enterprises to operate, manage and develop the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.
Petitions were also filed filed by Airport Authority Employees Union a (AAEU) and AAEU’s president KP Suresh against the HC judgement
A SC bench comprising Chief Justice UU Lalit and justice Bela M Trivedi said there is no need to interfere with the High Court decision at this stage, since a private entity has been managing the operations of the airport since October last year, as per news agency IANS.
The bench also declined to entertain the plea filed by the AAEU and others challenging the High Court order. “Considering the fact that the private entity has been in operation since October 2021, we see no reason to interfere,” the bench said while dismissing the petitions.
Senior advocate CU Singh contended before the bench that land on which the airport is built belonged to the Kerala government, and the state should get preferential rights, and also alleged that RFP was tailor made to suit the Adani group. However, the bench pointed out that the state government did not chal-lenge the RFP conditions, rather participated in the bid.
The apex court clarified that the question in connection with the ownership of airport land will remain open.
The Kerala government had challenged the Airports Authority of India (AAI) decision to prefer Adani over it for management of the airport. The appeal argued that this decision was not in public interest and granting concession to Adani, who has no previous experience in managing airports, was violative of the provisions of the Airports Authority of India Act.
After losing the bid, the state government approached the Kerala High Court, but failed to get a favourable decision, following which they along with AAEU moved the apex court.
