HC relief for DMRC over Airport Express Line

NEW DELHI: In order to give a boost to Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), Delhi High Court set aside an arbitration award of over Rs 3,000 crore, which is to be paid to Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary involved in Airport Express Line. An earlier ruling where the single judge had upheld the arbitration award and directed DMRC to pay the money to Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) was reversed by a bench of justices Sanjiv Khanna and Chander Shekhar.

The appeal by DMRC challenging the single judge order has been partly allowed and HC has said it will be open to both the parties to again go in for arbitration. A detailed copy of the order is yet to come.

In its plea, DMRC claimed that the original termination notice of October 2012 by which DAMEPL ended its agreement was illegal, against the provisions of the concessional agreement.

Soon after a joint public private partnership over building, operating and running the Airport Express Line, the partnership ran aground over some defects. With the inability of the public transport provider to solve the problems, the Reliance subsidiary terminated the contract demanding payments and revenues.

DMRC after all failed attempts took the case to arbitration and an award was granted by the tribunal in favour of DAMEPL in 2017. The award asked DMRC to pay about Rs 3,000 crore, along with interest.