P Pius Lotha
Nagaland High Court building construction has been in the news for a long time due to unending construction work even after more than a decade, as such the courts are functioning under extended court rooms comprising of three Court rooms in the present court complex at old Minister Hill Kohima. Nagaland on attending full fledge State on 1st December 1963, was having High Court bench at Kohima which later in the year 1990 was declared permanent Bench. The other North Eastern States like Manipur, Tripura, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh subsequently followed suit. The entire seven North-East sisters states came under the umbrella of the Gauhati High Court, functioning as Benches of Gauhati High Court as principal seat.
With the passing of years the States were given separate High Courts with an exception of Nagaland, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh states which still continues to be an outlying Benches. The central government had accorded sanction for construction of different High Courts in the North East for those separate High Courts of North East and benches of Gauhati High Court. As per News report the foundation stone for the High Court complex was laid in 2007 by the then Chief Justice of India Shri. K G Balakrishna in the presence of Chief justice of Gauhati High Court, Justice retired Shri. J. Chelameswar and the Chief Minister of Nagaland Shri. Neiphiu Rio. It is also found from the different media reports that construction works of all the other High courts of Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur which started simultaneously with Nagaland have long been completed and are fully functioning since 2013. However, construction of Nagaland High Court remains in deadlock. In view of the inordinate delay in completion of the project and allegations of corruptions and misappropriation, Organizations like the Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC) and other activist filed RTI as per the local News paper.
The Gauhati High Court on 2nd May 2018 registered PIL (Suo Moto) 5/2017 and Quote “direct the CBI to conduct preliminary inquiry into the allegations of misappropriation of public money vis-à-vis the snail pace of construction work of the new High Court complex at Kohima, Nagaland and submit a report within 3(Three) months to the Registrar general of this High Court. Needless to say that if the CBI is of the view that there is any material to support the allegations, it will take action as per law by registering First Information Report etc. and the state Government shall fully co-operate with the investigation. Our direction is in conformity with the direction given by the Supreme Court in Noida Entrepreneurs Association vs Noida, (2011) 6 SCC 508. We also direct the Director, Central Bureau of Investigation to depute an officer to immediately collect all the relevant records from the Government of Nagaland pertaining to this Public Interest Litigation.
Since our direction above is only confined to a preliminary enquiry and not an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation, we had deliberately refrained ourselves from commenting on the explanation given by the Respondents justifying use of huge amount of Money as well as completion of works so that neither the enquiry nor the interest of the parties suffered prejudice.
We further direct the State Government to expedite the construction of the new High Court complex and ensure that the construction is completed at the earliest with the highest standard of construction so that the long cherished dream of the people of Nagaland to have an independent High Court of its own is materialized. Unquote”
According to the RTI information received, many anomalies were found. Thus the court in its observation had expressed surprise that despite the foundation stone being laid long back in 2007, the work progress was pitiable. HC also pointed out that the construction works of all the other High Courts of Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur, which were simultaneously started with Nagaland, had long been completed and were fully functioning since 2013.
It is further seen that in the Audit conducted by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report for ending 2019 and Report 2 of 2020, many anomalies had been exposed by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India in the delay of the construction of Kohima High Court.
Taking into account of all these controversies it culminated in the investigation by the CBI on the direction by the Hon’ble Gauhati High Court. Accordingly the CBI conducted investigation and filed Charge Sheet No. 6/2021 and Charge Sheet No. 7/2021 in CBI Case No. RC 2(A) 2019- IMP containing the detail facts before the Court of Special CBI Court at Dimapur Nagaland on January 11, 2022. The Charge Sheet in the case having been filed in the court, the Gauhati High Court Kohima Bench has directed the special CBI Court Dimapur to issue summons to the alleged accused Nagaland Government officials and the contractors involved to expedite disposal of the case involving alleged misappropriation of public money with regard to the construction of a new High Court complex at Kohima.
The present issue is the outcome of Suo Moto case PIL (Suo Moto) 5/2017 for alleged misappropriation of public money resulting slow progress for construction works at the new High Court complex Kohima. The detail events of the case contained in the Hon’ble High Court order of dated May 02, 2018 has been elaborated in Nagaland page daily on February 10, 2022 issue.
The Anti Corruption Council of India (ACCI) North-East Zone expect that justice is dispensed in the trial of the case and the guilty are punished. In this regard the Anti Corruption Council of India (ACCI) will apprise the authorities of The Chief Justice of India, The Chief Justice Gauhati High Court and The Director of Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to monitor the trial of the case. It may also be highlighted that since the Charge Sheet has been submitted before the Hon’ble court, the Anti Corruption Council of India (ACCI) will not like to dwell into the case to avoid sub judice in the trial of the case.
The writer is Chairman, Legal Cell, North East Zone, Anti Corruption Council of India (ACCI)
