NEW DELHI: The delay by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to pay the arbitration award to Anil Ambani-owned Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) has put an additional burden of Rs 680 crore on the former as an interest burden, sources said.
“Every single day’s delay is costing DMRC an additional interest liability of Rs. 1.34 crore. The delay of 19 months in honouring the Award has put an additional interest burden of Rs. 680 crores on the metro corporation,” a source said.
The DMRC is mandated to pay Rs 8,000 crore of arbitration sum to the DMRC in a total of which, Rs 4,765 crore remains to be paid. The Delhi High Court had on March 17 ordered DMRC along with the Centre and Delhi Government to ensure payment of the remaining amount under the award to DAMEPL at the earliest. The court directed both governments to provide a sovereign guarantee to DMRC latest by March 31 so that it could pay the entire amount to DAMEPL by the end of April.
The court ordered that, in case the option does not work out, the accounts of DMRC as on 17 March 2023 shall automatically stand attached on 31 March 2023 and the Court would consider further orders to the Centre and Delhi government to execute the award.
DMRC, a 50-50 joint venture between the Government of India (GOI) and the Delhi government, terminated its contract with DAMEPL to operate the 22.7km Airport Metro Express line in October 2012. An arbitral tribunal, in May 2017, ruled in favour of DAMEPL, which pulled out of running the Airport Express metro line over safety issues. The award was upheld by the high court’s single-judge bench in 2018 but a two-judge bench set it aside in 2019.
When the case came to the top court, the Supreme Court upheld the initial verdict awarding damages to DAMEPL in September 2021. The DMRC filed a review petition which was dismissed by a two-judge bench comprising Justice L Nageswara Rao (since retired) and Justice S Ravindra Bhat in November 2021.