SC judge K V Viswanathan recuses himself from hearing contempt plea in DMRC-DAMEPL case

New Delhi, Nov 14 (PTI) Supreme Court judge Justice K V Viswanathan on Thursday recused himself from hearing a plea alleging contempt of its verdict allowing a curative plea against the apex court's 2021 judgement that awarded an Anil Ambani group firm Rs 8,000 crore in a dispute with the Delhi Metro.
     The apex court had on April 10 this year set aside its 2021 verdict and asked the Anil Ambani group firm to return about Rs 2,500 crore it had already received, holding that the previous judgement caused "grave miscarriage of injustice" to a public utility which was saddled with an exorbitant liability.
     Allowing the curative plea of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) against the 2021 verdict, the top court had said the order of the Delhi High Court division bench was a "well-considered decision" and "there was no valid basis" for the Supreme Court to interfere with it.
     On Thursday, a plea alleging contempt of the apex court's April verdict came up for hearing before a bench of Justices B R Gavai and K V Viswanathan.
     "I can't hear this," Justice Viswanathan said at the outset.
     The apex court directed that the matter be listed before a bench of which Justice Viswanathan was not a member.
     As per the arbitral award, Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL), a Reliance Infrastructure firm, was entitled to Rs 2,782.33 crores plus interest in terms of the concession agreement. This amount had swelled up to Rs 8,009.38 crore by February 14, 2022.
     The apex court had on September 9, 2021 upheld the 2017 arbitration award enforceable against the DMRC and said that there was a disturbing tendency of courts setting aside such awards.
     It had quashed the Delhi High Court order that set aside the arbitration award in favour of DAMEPL which pulled out of an agreement to run the Airport Express metro line over safety issues.
     Later on November 23, 2021, the top court had dismissed the DMRC's plea seeking review of its September 9, 2021 judgement, saying no case for review was made out.
     Aggrieved by this order, the DMRC filed a curative plea, the last legal recourse in the apex court, in 2022 against the dismissal of the review petition.
     The DMRC had challenged the arbitral award on several grounds, including that the notice of October 8, 2012 issued by DAMEPL terminating the concessionaire agreement related to running the airport metro line in the national capital was "illegal".
     In May 2017, an arbitral tribunal ruled in favour of DAMEPL, which had pulled out of the agreement, and accepted its claim that running the operations on the line was not viable due to structural defects in the viaduct through which the trains would pass.
     The Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Infrastructure Limited, the flagship firm of DAMEPL had termed the curative plea of the DMRC against the top court's decisions as the "whole-sale trial by ambush".

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)