DMRC not obliged to pay Rs 8K crore to Reliance Infra firm: Apex court

New Delhi, April 10

The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside its own three year old judgment that awarded an Anil Ambani group firm Rs 8,000 crore in a dispute with Delhi Metro and asked the company to return about Rs 2,500 crore it had already received, holding that the previous verdict caused “grave miscarriage of injustice” to a public utility which was saddled with an exorbitant liability.

Allowing the curative plea of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) against the 2021 judgement, a special bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud said the order of the Delhi High Court division bench was a “well-considered decision” and “there was no valid basis” for the Supreme Court to interfere with it.

The interference by the apex court, in its earlier decisions, had resulted in restoring a patently illegal award, it said.

“The judgment of the two-judge Bench of this Court, which interfered with the judgment of the Division Bench of the High Court, has resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

Meanwhile, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd in a stock exchange filing said: “The order dated April 10, 2024, passed by the Supreme Court does not impose any liability on the company and the company has not received any money from DMRC/DAMEPL under the arbitral award,” it said. — TNS

Setback for Anil

• SC has set aside a Rs 8,000 cr arbitral award granted in favour of Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL), a subsidiary of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Infrastructure
• The award was in relation to a dispute arising out of a “concession agreement” that was entered into between DAMEPL and Delhi Metro Rail Corp in 2008
• DMRC had paid Rs 3,300 cr to the Reliance Infra arm, which now needs to be refunded