The work on the ₹8000-crore container terminal at Jawaharlal Nehru Port could be delayed if a public interest litigation (PIL) filed against the award of the project to PSA International of Singapore is admitted and stay granted.
A JNPT official said the port trust has received a notice on the PIL which was filed by a journalist in the High Court of Bombay.
The petition is expected to come up for hearing for admission later this week.
The concession agreement for the project – the single largest foreign direct investment in the Indian port sector – was signed by PSA last month.
The Singapore port company won the project after agreeing to share 35.75 per cent of the revenue with the government. Adani Ports was the second bidder which offered 37 per cent revenue share.
It was the second time that the PSA was awarded the project. In 2011, it had won the project in partnership with ABG Ports offering a revenue share of 52 per cent — highest in the case of any PPP port project – but refused to sign the concession agreement.
After a year, JNPT terminated the letter of award, but allowed the Singapore company to bid for the project again.
The petitioner is understood to have questioned the port’s decision to award the project to the same company which had virtually backed out of the same project after winning it in a similar tender two years ago.
The petitioner’s contention is said to be that instead of blacking the Singapore firm for deliberately delaying the project, it was allowed to bid again.