Cuttack, May 21: The Orissa government’s controversial decision to go ahead with the development of minor ports by involving private developers without going through an open bidding process has come under judicial scrutiny.

Orissa High Court has issued notices to the state government on a writ petition challenging the allotment of minor port sites for development by private parties through direct negotiation.

Over a month ago, AICC general secretary Jagdish Tytler had sparked off a controversy by alleging a major scam in the signing of agreement by the Orissa government with private developers for development of minor ports without an open bidding process.

Tytler had alleged that the scam was bigger than that of 2G spectrum one.

The controversy reached the high court with a writ petition questioning the signing of the agreements with private developers without going through an open bidding process.

Acting on it, the division bench of Chief Justice V. Gopala Gowda and Justice B.N. Mohapatra issued the notice yesterday while fixing May 25 for hearing the case and directing the state government to file a reply by then. Biswajit Mohanty had filed the petition.

Earlier, as Transparency International India (TII)’s board member, Mohanty had, in a letter to chief minister Naveen Patnaik, alleged that the practice followed by the commerce and transport department in allotting minor ports for development to private parties through direct negotiation lacked transparency and urged for a CBI probe into it.

According to the petition filed in the high court, the state government had in 2004, announced its port policy for the development of 12 minor ports by private operators. International competitive bids were invited for the Gopalpur port and one private party was selected through a bidding process.

However, after this first selection process, the state government allotted ports through direct negotiation without inviting tenders or competitive bids.

“It is not clear as to why this opaque and non transparent method prone to corruption was adopted. These allotments have close similarity to the infamous 2G spectrum scam,” Mohanty alleged.

So far, three private parties had been awarded rights to develop minor ports at the Subarnareka river mouth, Chudamani and Astaranga, while eight other minor ports are in the pipeline for being developed by private parties.

The petition has sought direction for a transparent and open tender process for the allotment of development rights for the remaining ports.

Mohanty contended that these eight ports can potentially fetch Rs 1,44,000 crore of gross revenue over the next 30 years and the state’s share can be maximised by inviting open bids from developers.