Heavy Engineering Corporation (HEC) management on Wednesday came out with concrete evidence to make it clear that the Jharkhand State Cricket Association (JSCA) blatantly violated the lease agreement.It also revealed that the final call to terminate the lease agreement was taken on July 4 only after the JSCA did not pay heed to three earlier notices served to them. The HEC management also cleared that the final notice has been served to the JSCA authorities asking them to vacate the stadium premises within a month after which the law of the land will prevail.
“The only reason behind taking up such a serious step was that the stadium authorities were doing huge violation of the almost all terms and conditions signed between us in the lease agreement,” said HEC Chief of Township and PRO Hemant Kumar Gupta. Gupta, however, cleared that being a Government of India undertaking they were committed to protect the law of the land. When asked why the issue was raised at this point of time, Gupta said that they had been keeping a close watch on the activities of the stadium authorities and were also warned at various points of time, but they never cared to pay attention to the notices served by the HEC.
“Finally, one month notice was served on July 4 to the stadium authorities to vacate the premises,” said Gupta. Three notices dated April 10, 2013, September 20, 2013 and January 16, 2015 had been served to the JSCA authorities before issuing the final notice to them on July 4, 2015 terminating the deed of lease agreement between M/S HEC and JSCA,” added Gupta.
HEC had allotted 31.70 acres of land to the JSCA for building a state of the art international cricket complex befitting international venue for international matches in the year 2008 under the direction of Jharkhand High Court in WP(C) No 4513 of 2004. Gupta claimed that despite the fact that the land was given to the JSCA only for the purpose of organizing International cricket matches, the stadium was being used for the purpose of commercial activities like live concerts of Sonu Nigam and Mika and Honey Singh purely for commercial gains.
“Moreover, in an utter violation of lease agreement, the stadium was also being used for organising marriage functions besides, opening a full-fledged restaurant named Samagra,” said Gupta. He further claimed that the JSCA did not even pay the promised 5 per cent of the Gate Money and the money generated from the parking space, as per the lease agreement. “JSCA paid certain amount on July 9, 2015 against the three One Day International Matches played in the Stadium, through a cheque dated July 6, 2015,” he said.
“Similarly, several other violations of the terms and conditions of lease agreement had been done by the JSCA like -- logo of HEC was nowhere displayed inside or outside of the stadium complex; HEC CMD was not made the patron of JSCA; the board members of HEC were not confirmed as Honorary Members of JSCA; HEC was not inducted into the official address of JSCA,” alleged Gupta. “lastly, JSCA provided 100 complimentary tickets for HEC which was far away from the pavilion and were not of premium category but as per the lease agreement the seating arrangement for HEC staff was to be made adjacent to the pavilion,” added the HEC PRO.