Apex court paves way for GMR to upgrade, operate Nagpur Int’l Airport
The Supreme Court on Friday closed the proceedings on a curative plea of the Centre and the Airport Authority of India (AAI) against its verdict allowing GMR Airports to upgrade and operate Nagpur’s Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport.
The order came from a special four-judge Bench led by CJI DY Chandrachud.
The Centre and the AAI had filed a curative petition against the dismissal of their review plea by the top court which had already dismissed the petition of the Centre and the AAI against a Bombay High Court verdict allowing GMR Airports to upgrade and operate the Nagpur Airport.
The Bench – which also included Justice Sanjiv Khanna, Justice BR Gavai and Justice JK Maheshwari — closed the proceedings on the curative petition against its verdict after taking note of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta’s opinion that the petition of the Centre and the AAI did not fall under one of the legal parameters prescribed for entertaining such pleas.
Curative petitions are considered to be the last hope for a litigant to get justice. Generally, a curative petition is not taken up in open court and is entertained on the ground of violation of principles of natural justice. It’s heard by circulation among the members of the Bench. However, in exceptional cases, the top court can grant an open court hearing.
Maintaining that the curative petition did not fall within the parameters of the Rupa Hurra judgement, Mehta said, “These proceedings cannot be made into an intra court appeal. I must own my decision.... I have not even consulted the Centre.”
On May 9, 2022, the Supreme Court had upheld the Bombay High Court order quashing a March 2020 communication cancelling a contract awarded to GMR Airports for the upgrade and operation of the airport. The Centre and the AAI had filed the curative plea against the top court’s order.
