November 20, 2006, 12:00 am
The Orissa High Court has stayed the HRD Ministry�s decision to shift the proposed National Institute of Science (NIS) from Bhubaneswar to Kolkata.
A division bench of the High Court headed by Chief Justice Sujit Burman Roy on October 8 ordered the Union Government not to shift the proposed NIS from Orissa to any other place in the eastern zone. The Orissa High Court had summoned the Central as well as the State Governments to put forth their versions with documents but their responses were found inadequate.
The directive of the court came in response to a public interest litigation filed by Prasanta Kumar Dash, president, Orissa Janaswarth Surakshya Parishad, challenging the Centre�s decision to set up the institute in Kolkata instead of Bhubaneswar. The NDA government had decided to set up four national institutes of excellence in the line of Indian Institute of Science (IISc)-Bangalore, at Allahabad, Bhubaneswar, Chennai and Pune. It was decided in 2003 that a National Institute of Science should be established at Bhubaneswar, which was the number one choice amongst four such places listed in the plan, placed before the Parliamentary Consultative Committee and thus approved by the Parliament. Later, The UPA Government decided to shift the Bhubaneswar NIS to Kolkata.
