The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) on Tuesday moved the Supreme Court against the Delhi High Court’s order directing it to pay `60 crore as three months interest to a lender of its former concessionaire for airport express line.
The DMRC’s counsel mentioned the matter before a vacation Bench comprising Justices PC Pant and Deepak Gupta, who said it would hear the issue on June 19.
The Corporation has challenged the June 7 order of High Court’s division Bench which had dismissed its appeal against a single judge order asking it to pay the amount.
The single judge’s interim order of May 30 had come on a plea by the concessionaire Delhi Airport Metro Express Private limited (DAMEPl) seeking early payment of `3,502 crore, which is 75 per cent of the arbitral award of `4,670 crore granted in its favour on May 11.
The single judge had passed the order “in view of the financial conditions and interest burden being borne” by DAMEPl, which had claimed it was paying `65 lakh per day, coming to `20 crore per month, as interest to its lender.
In its appeal before the high court’s division Bench, the DMRC had challenged the interim order, saying it would amount to partial implementation of the award and would also be akin to dismissal of its objections against enforcement of award. The division Bench had said that it was not inclined to interfere with the May 30 order as it was an interim decision and the issues raised by the DMRC have been kept open by the single judge.
The court had also noted that single judge had protected the DMRC’s interests by directing DAMEPl, a subsidiary of the Reliance Infrastructure (Rinfra), to furnish a bank guarantee of `65 crore.