New Delhi: Supreme Court judge Justice Hima Kohli on Thursday offered to recuse herself from hearing a batch of petitions arising out of the Amazon-Future Retail case, saying she and her family members have shares in Reliance Industries Ltd group firms, one of the interested parties to the litigation.
We have no objection, said a battery of lawyers appearing for parties including the US-based e-commerce giant Amazon, Future Retail Limited (FRL) and Future Coupons Private Ltd (FCPL).
I and my family members have some shares in Reliance Industries Ltd and if you have any problem with this then I will recuse, said Justice Kohli who was sitting on the bench presided over by Chief Justice N V Ramana.
The bench, which also comprised Justice A S Bopanna, then proceeded to hear the petitions and cross-petitions filed by the parties briefly before adjourning them for final hearing on November 23 through hybrid mode.
The top court was hearing a fresh petition of Future Group against the Delhi High Court's recent order declining its plea for stay on an arbitration tribunal decision refusing to interfere with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre's (SIAC) Emergency Award (EA) which restrained it from going ahead with the Rs 24,731 crore merger deal with Reliance Retail.
The bench was also hearing a counter plea by Amazon, seeking to restrain the regulators from approving the merger deal.
The top court issued formal notices on both the fresh petitions.
Meanwhile, the IDBI trusteeship also moved the apex court seeking to de-freeze Future Retail shares pledged to it and said the Delhi High Court has attached its
shares.