New Delhi, July 19
The Supreme Court today refused to buy the argument of Anil Ambani
owned Reliance Airport Developers Ltd for review of the government
policy on privatisation of its huge assets and laying down proper
guidelines on it, saying such a plea in a case purely based on
contractual obligations could not be entertained.
Former Solicitor General Mukul Rohtagi, appearing for Reliance,
which failed to get the contract for development and management of
either of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, at the very outset sought to
bring in the ambit of court hearing the policy on privatisation also.
His main contention was that since there was proposal for
privatisation of nearly 30 to 40 airports in the pipeline and also
engaging private sector in improving the railway stations, the
existing policy of the government did not lay down proper guidelines
for this, while huge assets were in stake.
But a Bench of Mr Justice Arijit Pasayat and Mr Justice S H Kapadia
asked, “In a contract of private parties, how can the guidelines be
laid down for privatisation?”
When Rohtagi tried to make a point by citing the example of Tata
Cellular case in which the apex court had laid down guidelines for the
entry of private parties in cellular service, the court said, “After
you (Reliance) are party to a contract under the privatisation policy,
how can you ask for laying down the guidelines. At the most you can
raise the issue of ‘fair and transparent’ procedure’ not adopted
in your case... there is no question of going into other issues.”
He alleged that Reliance’s bid was rejected at the last moment by
Group of Ministers (GoM) after a Group of Eminent Technical Experts
(GETE) downgraded its benchmark as qualified bidder without looking
the evaluation of its project plan, while the tender Expert Committee
(EC) had only approved Reliance and GMR consortium as the only two
qualified parties to the bid for Delhi and Mumbai airports.
In a final decision the GoM had approved GMR’s bid for the Delhi
airport and Mumbai airport was given to GVK consortium, which stood
far below in the bench mark criteria set up by the EC, Rohtagi said,
pointing out the facts from government report.
He said the EC having experts with vast experience in airport
development, a leading legal firm and ABN Amro Bank, providing
financial back up to such projects world wide, had given over 80 marks
out of 100 for GMR and Reliance while GVK was far below and out of
race in the initial scrutiny process.
The Reliance Airport Developer moved the apex court after its
petition against rejection of its bid was dismissed by the Delhi High
Court.
Rohtagi also said that Reliance’s financial bid for Delhi Airport
was the highest and the GMR which was awarded the contract with its
slight edge on technical expertise had quoted lesser revenue sharing.
The hearing is expected to go on for few days.
