Observing that the Bangalore-Mysore Infrastructure Corridor (BMIC) project “appears to be one of the biggest scams in the State,” the High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday (July 29, 2026) said that the project is “a fit case for an independent assessment and investigation to be carried out by a special team of experts though forensic audit of its accounts for committing fraud and other criminal acts.”

However, the Court expressed doubt about conduct of such a probe “as the State itself is accomplice in allowing the project proponents (Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprises and others) to earn huge profits illegally by diverting the lands against the Frame Work Agreement (FWA), capitalising the assets, drying up the lakes, collecting huge toll in violation of the FWA, and sitting over the huge land bank without payment of compensation etc”.

“The NICE project has done nothing but to benefit its proponents in an astronomical way at the expense of the landowners and the public interest in general,” the Court said.

A division bench comprising Justice D.K. Singh and Justice T.M. Nadaf made these observations while dismissing the appeals filed by the NICE and the Karnataka Industrial Areas Development Board (KIADB) challenging the July 4, 2025, judgement of a single judge who had quashed the acquisition of several acres of lands for failure on part of the KIADB to pass awards for lands despite passage of 23 years after issuing final notifications.

‘Nothing nice about NICE’

“There is nothing nice about the NICE project except that the farmers have been robbed of their lands and livelihood of generations without payment of compensation as mandated under Article 300A of the Constitution of India,” the Bench said.

Rejecting the plea of NICE that land owners cannot re-agitate acquisition as it was already upheld by the Supreme Court, the Bench made it clear that in these cases, the land owners had questioned only non passing of the award two decades after issuance of acquisition notification and more than 15 years since the apex court upheld legality of the FWA and acquisition of lands. Such an inordinate delay renders the acquisition proceedings unsustainable, the Bench said while upholding the single judge’s verdict.

Further, the Bench said that the “project has not done any public good or served any public purpose except to benefit the project proponent in unimaginable properties. The project was though conceived for public purpose, but it has served only private interests of the project proponents.”

Why no review?

Noticing that the State government itself has pointed out to the Court several violations committed by NICE, the Bench said, “We fail to understand why the State is not reviewing the project or cancelling the same as the NICE has utterly failed in its objective i.e., developing five townships and expressway of approximately 111 kms, between the two major cities of Karnataka i.e., Bengaluru and Mysuru to decongest the city of Bengaluru and provide and create opportunities for employment and growth alongside the expressway”.

The bench said that NICE’s claim, that the government’s failure to acquire and provide the lands required under the FWA caused non-completion of the project in 25 years, is “not only incorrect but false” as an affidavit filed by the government before the apex court had stated that 554 acres of excess land was handed over to NICE for the project.

Published - July 29, 2026 06:29 pm IST