Delhi HC grants more time to DMRC to pay Reliance Infra arbitral award

New Delhi, Oct 10 The Delhi High Court granted time till October 31 to the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to formulate a plan for the payment of the arbitral award amount to the Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL), a Reliance infrastructure arm.

Attorney-General of India R. Venkataramani apprised before the bench of Justice V. Kameswar Rao that in order to raise loans to pay the arbitration award to DAMEPL, the DMRC would fall into a 'debt trap' and expressed the apprehension of affecting its operations.

"Millions of commuters will suffer if any adverse order is passed against DMRC," AGI Venkataramani submitted before the court.

Seeking alternate measures, the AGI also said it had requested the Centre and Delhi Government regarding the funds to make the balance payment to DAMEPL.

The DMRC has sought Rs 3,500 crore each from the Centre and Delhi government.

As per DMRC's submissions, it has paid Rs 2,599.17 crore to DAMEPL out of Rs 7,010.08 crore which it owes to the Anil Ambani group firm as of September 6.

On the other hand, DAMEPL argued that every time the Delhi Metro is appearing with affidavits containing different opinions and 'vague' reasons and several months have passed now.

The question arises is whether they have to pay the money or not, whether the execution order of the arbitral award will be executed or not, DAMEPL's counsel argued.

To this, the AGI said, there would not be any doubt about the execution of the orders and pointed out the exceptional circumstances of the Delhi Metro.

Accordingly, the court said, to let the DMRC come in the next working day with clear solutions on the payment and posted further hearing on October 31.