Supreme Court: The Supreme Court pulls down the government for not complying with arbitration awards | Daily News Byte

Expressing displeasure that the government itself is not abiding by arbitral awards, the Supreme Court on Monday asked Attorney General R. Venkataramanya to give a deadline for payment of the balance of Rs 4,520 crore owed by Delhi Metro Rail Corp to Reliance Infrastructure to Delhi Airport Metro Express (DAMEPL).

DAMEPL, which operated the Delhi Airport Express Line, had sought to recover the enforcement of an arbitration award it had obtained in May 2017 against the Delhi Metro operator.

“On the one hand, your government says it wants to promote India as an international arbitration hub… the same government then does not abide by the arbitration award,” said Justice BR Gavai Venkataramani appearing for Delhi Metro. “We will have to take this seriously.”

Asking the AG to submit a repayment schedule by Wednesday, he said the government must be serious about complying with the arbitration awards. Venkataramani told the bench that so far DMRC has paid Rs 2,700 crore for the award and since the central and Delhi government are equity partners in the Delhi Metro, they have to sit together to resolve the issue. “The Delhi cabinet, which was busy with elections, can meet now. If you go the IBC way of asset acquisition, you will get nothing,” he claimed.

Senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for DAMEPL, said the governments had enough time to meet and decide on the payment issue since the SC upheld the arbitration award in September last year.