Supreme Court slaps notice on Future Group

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Future group on Amazon's plea against the January 5 order of the Delhi High Court staying the ongoing arbitration proceedings before an arbitral tribunal over Future Retail's Rs 24,500 crore merger deal with Reliance. A Bench comprising Chief Justice NV Ramana and Justices AS Bopanna and Hima Kohli issued notices to the Future Group firms-- Future Coupons Private Ltd (FCPL) and Future Retail Ltd (FRL)-- and said that it will hear the matter on February 23 "without any adjournment".

The Delhi High Court on January 5 had stayed the Amazon-Future arbitration which is going on before a three-member arbitral tribunal over the latter's Rs 24,500-crore deal with Reliance. During the brief hearing, the CJI expressed displeasure over some media reports on his remarks made on Tuesday while declining US-based e-commerce major Amazon's request to file written submission in another case field by FRL seeking a nod to proceed with the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) permission of going ahead with the merger.

The bench had observed on Tuesday that it appeared to be a "luxurious litigation". While issuing the notice on the fresh plea of Amazon on Wednesday, the CJI said, "I am sorry to say that papers are unnecessary highlighting whatever we observed, but this is also the same, the other side (Future), they don't want matters should go on." The bench issued notice on the plea of the US firm even before senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for Amazon, started the submissions on the plea filed against the high court's January 5 order. Senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Future group, said that let the matter be kept for hearing on February 23 as senior lawyer Harish Salve, who also appears for the Future group firm, was unavailable. Rohatgi said that NCLAT would hear next week the Amazon plea against the Competition Commission of India (CCI) order which had revoked its sanction for the deal with Future Group. He also said that the high court has decided to hear in the third week of March the batch of pleas of FRL and others on the refusal to grant a stay on the final arbitral award which had restrained FRL from going ahead with its merger deal with Reliance Retail.