Rinfra subsidiary moves HC, to enforce arbitration award of Rs 5,200 crores against Delhi Metro

Reliance Infrastructure’s (Rinfra’s) subsidiary Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL), which was operating the Delhi Metro’s Airport Express line, has moved the Delhi High Court, seeking the execution of the arbitration award of Rs 5,200 crores, including interest of over Rs 2,000 crores, it had won against the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC). The petition is expected to come up for hearing this week. The development comes after the high court, on March 6, 2018, directed the DMRC to pay the arbitral award to DAMEPL within four weeks. The court had dismissed DMRC’s plea against the Arbitral Tribunal’s May, 2017 order, asking it to make payments to DAMEPL, in the case related to the Airport Express Corridor. The court had allowed a separate plea of the DAMEPL, the former concessionaire of the Airport Express line, for an early payment of 75 per cent of the arbitral award in its favour. According to the DAMEPL’s earlier plea, the concession agreement was signed by the two parties on August 25, 2008. Under the agreement, DMRC was to carry out the civil works, excluding the depot and the balance, including the project system works, were to be executed by DAMEPL. The Airport Express line was commissioned on February 23, 2011, after an investment of Rs 2,885 crores, funded by the DAMEPL’s promoters’ fund, banks and financial institutions. DAMEPL had said it had terminated the concession agreement, as DMRC had not cured certain defects in the Airport Express line within 90 days of a notice issued by it. It had also said the agreement had come to effect from January 1, 2013 and the project was handed over to DMRC on June 30, 2013. Till the handing over of the project, DAMEPL had operated the line as a deemed agent of DMRC, it had said. The arbitration was entered into in August, 2013, after efforts to amicably resolve the issue did not yield any result. DAMEPL is a joint venture of Rinfra and a Spanish construction company – Construcciones Y Auxiliar De Ferrocarriles – with a shareholding of 95 and five per cent, respectively.