Having not received any communication from the Ministry of Home Affairs on the issue, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) on Thursday gave another six months extension to the Indian Hotels Company ltd (IHCl) to operate the Taj Mahal Hotel, popularly known as Taj Mansingh Hotel. The existing lease extension, which the IHCl got in March, is going to end on July 31. It was in June last year that the civic body had decided to seek the opinion of the Solicitor General of India through the MHA on the issue. The NDMC had written to the Ministry in July last year for which it is yet to hear from the latter.
The Pioneer, on July 10, had reported that the IHCl is set to get the fifth extension in the NDMC’s next council meeting. “We had to be quick to decide on the Taj Mansingh issue as its lease is going to expire on July 31. We have given the IHCl an extension of six months. We have not received anything from the MHA so far,” said Jalaj Shrivastava, chairperson, NDMC. The proposal was passed in the agency’s council meeting which was presided over by New Delhi MP Meenakshi lekhi and attended by other members like New Delhi MlA Arvind Kejriwal.
With regard to the five-star Taj Mansingh hotel, it was in April when Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran had submitted his legal opinion on the issue of auctioning the five-star hotel, but the same has not been received by the NDMC so far. The agency had approached the SG on whether the Taj Group should be given the first right of refusal in the auction of the property last year. The council had moved its query through the law and Home Ministries.
SG Parasaran had stated in his legal opinion that the IHCl can continue to run the Taj Mahal hotel located on Mansingh Road in lutyen’s Delhi. Parasaran had mentioned that the NDMC could do so by extension of the lease agreement. Parasaran, in his 60-page opinion, had categorically ruled out the bidding route along with the Right of First Refusal (RoFR) saying that it would violate the Central Vigilance Commission’s guidelines of post-tendering negotiations.