Elevated expressway: Appellate Division’s status quo on share transfer
Court Correspondent :
The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Thursday issued status quo on transfer of Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited shares to China’s Sinohydro Corporation Limited in Dhaka Elevated Expressway till May 30.
The Appellate Division also asked the Italian-Thai company to file a leave to appeal petition with the court against the High Court Division verdict on the issue by the same date.
A full bench of the Appellate Division headed by Chief Justice Obaidul Hassan passed the order hearing on a petition filed by the Italian-Thai company that challenged a High Court verdict.
The Chief Justice said the interest of the country, not any individual or bank, is the top priority to the court. So, the apex court will pass an order after scrutinizing the judgement of the High Court on this issue, he said.
On May 12, the High Court lifted its order of status quo on the transfer of the Italian-Thai company’s shares in Dhaka Elevated Expressway to China’s Sinohydro Corporation Limited.
The Chinese company’s lawyer Mohammad Mehedi Hassan Chowdhury on Thursday told the media that the shares of Italian-Thai company cannot be transferred to Chinese company following the Appellate Division order of status quo.
He said his client will not finance in the construction of Dhaka Elevated Expressway until the shares of Italian-Thai company are transferred to Chinese Siohydro Company limited.
When contacted, Imtiaz Farooq, the lawyer for Italian-Thai company, said his client will file a leave to appeal petition with the apex court challenging the High Court order that recently lifted its order of status quo on the transfer of Italian-Thai company’s shares in Dhaka Elevated Expressway to China’s Sinohydro Corporation Limited.
With the shareholders legal fighting in court, construction works of the country’s important project to reduce traffic congestion remained almost halted.
The project was taken in 2009 and the construction work was inaugurated by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in April 2011.
In 2011, Bangladesh Bridge Authority signed a deal with the Italian-Thai company to build the expressway at a cost of Tk 8,703 crore. The deal was revised and inked again in 2013, with the cost revised to Tk 8,940 crore after making several changes to the design.
The scheme faltered time and again over the years, as the private investor, Italian-Thai Development Public Company Limited could not manage funds for the project and problems related to land acquisition, said officials involved in the project.
The company later sold their 49 percent of shares of First Dhaka Elevated Expressway Company Limited, which it formed to construct and manage the expressway, to two Chinese companies: China’s Shandong International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group and Sinohydro Corporation Limited.
The shares of the three companies are 51, 34 and 15 percent respectively.
After that, the official construction work started on January 1 of 2020 by extending the time on different occasions. The project was supposed to be completed within three and a half years.
