The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld a Delhi High Court order directing the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to pay over Rs 4,600 crore of arbitral award along with interest to Anil Ambani Groups’ Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) in two equal installments in two months. The order was passed by a bench of Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai.
Delhi High Court on March 10 had directed the DMRC to pay over Rs 4,600 crore of arbitral award along with interest to DAMEPL. HC’s judgment had come on DAMEPL's execution petition filed against DMRC concerning the arbitral award in its favour. An arbitral tribunal in its May 2017 award had ruled in favour of DAMEPL, which had pulled out from running the Airport Express metro line over safety issues, and accepted its 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 arbitral award pertained to a concession agreement between the two entities, which was signed on August 25, 2008. Under the agreement, the DMRC was to carry out civil works, excluding at the depot, and the balance, including the project system works, were to be executed by DAMEPL, a joint venture of Anil Ambani Group’s Reliance Infrastructure (R-infra) and a Spanish construction company — Construcciones Y Auxiliar De Ferrocarriles — with a shareholding of 95 and five per cent respectively.
DAMEPL had borrowed from 11 banks — Axis Bank, UCO Bank, Punjab, and Sind Bank, Andhra Bank, Central Bank of India, Dena Bank, Allahabad Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of India, IIFC UK, and Canara Bank London — to carry out operations on the line. The Airport Express line was commissioned on February 23, 2011, after an investment of over Rs 2,885 crore, funded by the DAMEPL's promoters' fund, banks, and financial institutions.