West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee failed to make the Tata Motors’ agreement with the state government over Singur project public on Thursday due to legal complications. On Wednesday, the chief minister had announced that the entire agreement on the Nano project (now abandoned) at Singur would be shared with the
media on Thursday. However, the copy of the agreement was not released to the media due to the legal tangles.
After chairing a marathon meeting with the officials at the office of the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC), state commerce and industries minister Partha Chatterjee said, “There are some legal tangles and we have decided to seek the advice of our would-be advocate-general Anindya Mitra. We hope to make the agreement public at an appropriate time.” He, however, did not mention any particular timeframe by when the state government would bring the agreement in the public domain. “Besides Tata Motors, there are separate agreement with each of the 54 vendors. We will have to examine those agreements. Chief minister Mamata Banerjee has asked me to study the documents in detail and inform her,” Mr Chatterjee added.
On September 5, 2008, the WBIDC had posted a portion of the agreement on their website after a directive from the then chief information commissioner of the state. Following this development, the Tata Motors had moved a petition in the Calcutta high court, apprehending that the secret part of the agreement (annexure-I and II) might be disclosed by the WBIDC and the state government. The high court had directed the state government not to make public the “secret” part of the agreement between the Tata Motors and the state government which was signed on March 9, 2007. “We will seek legal opinion on whether that stay on disclosing the agreement in public domain still exists,” a senior WBIDC official said.
Meanwhile, according to high-level sources in the state government, the agreement could not be made public in the next few days.