Reliance Infra wins over Rs 4,600 crore arbitration against Delhi Metro

The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation against an arbitration award in favour of debt-laden Reliance Group, ADAG, led by Anil Ambani, after a four-year battle for control of money secured following a dispute on running of Delhi Airport Express Metro line.

The amount over Rs 4,600 crore, including interest, comes as succour to the beleaguered group to repay its debt.

A bench presided over by Justice L Nageswara Rao held that the Delhi High Court was not right in interfering with the award of May 11, 2017 passed in favour of Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd, a subsidiary of Reliance Infrastructure.

"The conclusion of the division bench that the award of the Arbitral Tribunal suffers from patent illegality and shocks the conscience of the court is held to be erroneous," the bench said.

A joint public private partnership to build, operate and run the Airport Express line was made on August 25, 2008 between Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) and DAMEPL. However, the pact fell apart over some defects in the line which were allegedly not cured by DMRC. DAMEPL then pulled out from running the Metro line over safety issues. While DMRC has been running the Airport Express line since 2013, it had taken the case to arbitration and an award was given in favour of DAMEPL.

The arbitral tribunal in its May 2017 award had accepted DAMEPL’s claim that the running of operations on the line was not viable due to structural defects in the viaduct through which the train would run. The award asked DMRC to pay nearly Rs 3,000 crore, along with interest.

The judgement is big victory for Ambani as his telecom firms – Reliance communications and Reliance Telecom - are undergoing insolvency proceedings before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.

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