The Delhi High Court on Wednesday directed the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to furnish details of the amounts lying in its bank accounts on an execution petition filed by the Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) seeking payment in an arbitration dispute in which the Reliance Infra won.
In an order, Justice Suresh Kumar Kaith directed the DMRC to furnish details of its bank accounts in Delhi or outside Delhi.
“It will also be mentioned in the affidavit as to how much amount is lying in the bank account,” the court said, following the submission of Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, on behalf of DMRC.
Earlier, the DMRC had stated that an amount of Rs 1642.69 crore was available in its bank account. The case has now been listed for further hearing on January 11, 2022.
The DMRC has to pay an arbitral award of around Rs 7,200 crore to Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL).
The Supreme Court had upheld the arbitral award of Rs 7,200 crore in favour of DAMEPL, on September 7, 2021.
Over six hearings have taken place so far on the Execution Petition of DAMEPL, to enforce the Supreme Court’s Rs 7,200 crore money-decree against DMRC, and yet DMRC has not come up with any clear commitment/plan to make the payment.
In the meantime, the delay in the payment of award by DRMRC, a government of India undertaking, is putting an additional interest burden of Rs 2.0 crore per day on the tax payers’ money.
The delay by DMRC, since the pronouncement of the award by the apex court on September 9, has already cost the government exchequer an additional interest of over Rs 200 crore, so far.
According to legal sources, the whole conduct of DMRC is also in gross violation of the Rule 227A of the General Finance Rules (GFR), issued by the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, on October 29, 2021, which clearly states that in cases where Ministry/Department has challenged the arbitral award and the award money has not been paid, 75 per cent of the arbitral award (which may include interest up to date of the award) shall be paid by the concerned Ministry/Department to the contractor/concessionaire.
In addition to that, “General Instructions on Procurement and Project Management” issued by the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance, on October 29, 2021 emphasise that appeals are sometimes resorted to by the government officials to postpone the problem and defer personal accountability and such casual appealing in cases has resulted in the payment of heavy damages/ compensation/ additional interest cost, thereby causing more harm to the exchequer.
The instructions clearly state that officials responsible for not adhering to the Rule 227A of the GFRs would be held personally accountable for the additional interest arising, in the event of the final court order going against the entity.
Based on the instructions, personal accountability would have to be fixed on the concerned DMRC officials.
It is learned that, out of the money-decree of over Rs 7,250 crore against DMRC, Rs 2,945 crore is the principal amount and the remaining Rs 4,305 crore is the pre-award and post-award interest.
The DMRC has been utilising the Project Assets constructed/installed by DAMEPL and the Project revenues ever since July 2013.
DAMEPL had succeeded in the Supreme Court against DMRC, on the issue of termination of the Concession Agreement for the Airport Metro Express Line. The Termination Payment and other
compensation, under the arbitral award dated 11.05.2017, were confirmed by the Supreme Court on 09.09.2021.
DMRC’s Review Petition against this judgment was also summarily dismissed by SC on 23 November 2021.
