New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the 2017 arbitration award worth over Rs 4,600 crore in favour of Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Infrastructure’s special purpose vehicle Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL), enforceable against Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.
A bench headed by Justice L. Nageswara Rao quashed the Delhi high court order that had set aside the arbitration award in favour of DAMEPL, which had pulled out from running the Airport Express metro line over safety issues.
As per the Reliance Infrastructure’s latest annual report, the award is worth around $632 million (over Rs 4,600 crore) including the interest.
The arbitral tribunal in its May 2017 award had accepted airport metro operator’s claim that the running of operations on the line was not viable due reasons such as structural defects.
DAMEPL, as per its lawyers’ submissions during the hearings in the case, will use the money to pay lenders.
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Anil Ambani is facing a personal insolvency case filed by the State Bank of India.
Reliance Infrastructure’s unit had in 2008 entered into a contract with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) for running the airport metro line till 2038.
As disputes over fees and operations arose between the parties, DAMEPL stopped operating the metro on the airport line and invoked arbitration clause against DMRC alleging violation of contract and sought a termination fee.
(With inputs from PTI)
