Delhi HC to hear on Anil Ambani Group firm's plea on Dec 6

The Delhi High Court will on Monday hear a plea by Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) seeking execution of an arbitral award of over Rs 4,600 crore against Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

The matter will be heard by Justice Suresh Kumar Kait who had issued notice on the Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary's execution plea in September.

Recently, the Supreme Court had dismissed the DMRC's plea seeking a review of its judgement which upheld the 2017 arbitration award in favour of DAMEPL, enforceable against it.

The apex court on September 9 had upheld the arbitration award enforceable against DMRC and said there was a disturbing tendency of courts setting aside arbitral awards.

The top court had quashed the order passed by a division bench of the high court that had set aside the arbitration award in favour of DAMEPL which had pulled out from running the Airport Express metro line over safety issues. 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 division bench's decision had come on DMRC appeal against a single judge order of March 6 last year upholding the arbitral award in DAMEPL's favour.

The concession agreement between the two was signed on August 25, 2008. Under the agreement, DMRC was to carry out the civil works, excluding at the depot, and the balance, including the project system works, were to be executed by DAMEPL, a joint venture of Rinfra and a Spanish construction company - Construcciones Y Auxiliar De Ferrocarriles -- with a shareholding of 95 and five percent respectively.

The Airport Express line was commissioned on February 23, 2011 after an investment of over Rs 2,885 crore, funded by the DAMEPL promoters' fund, banks and financial institutions.