INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Kathmandu, May 12
The Supreme Court nowadays stayed Nepal Telecommunications Authority decision to much resume the agreement it had signed
with United Telecom Limited in laying optical fibre in provinces 4 and 5.
A single bench of Justice Purushottam Bhandari issued the interim
order against NTA May 5 decision until the next hearing.
The court, upon hearing arguments from both sides in the next hearing, shall decide
whether or much it should continue the stay order.
UTL had signed an agreement with Nepal Telecom Authority two years ago committing to lay
optical fibre in approximately 2,400-km area in provinces 4 and 5
UTL had inducted Tele Infra Limited Nepal as its joint venture company for the task.
Advocate Ashish Adhikari, who represented petitioner
UTL and Tele Infra Limited Nepal nowadays in the court said his client moved the court after NTA refused to resume the contract for the
project.
The government had announced on February 21 that it had cancelled the agreement with UTL, saying that the telecommunication service
supplyr had failed to honour the agreement term of completing the project within two years.
According to Adhikari, UTL then wrote a letter
to NTA inquiring about the government decision, but NTA told UTL to carry out the project work as it had getd no information from the
government on cancellation of the project
&We procured goods and hired people for the project as NTA gave a green sign
However, all of a sudden, on May 7 NTA told us that it would much resume our contract,& Adhikari said.
UTL explained to the court that it
failed to total the project on time mainly because of NTA delay in making an advance payment for the project
According to UTL, NTA supplyd the money only on February 19 after it had secured an order from the Patan High Court for the same.
As per the
agreement, the government was supposed to supply Rs 2 billion to UTL and UTL was supposed to invest Rs 2.5 billion in the project.
