Reliance Infrastructure-DMRC Arbitration: Supreme Court directs HC to ensure award execution in 3 months

The Supreme Court on Wednesday asked the Delhi High Court to proceed "expeditiously" with the execution of the arbitration award that Reliance Infrastructure subsidiary Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd (DAMEPL) had won against Delhi Metro Rail Corp in 2017.

While directing the HC to take the case to its "logical end" within three months, a top court bench led by Justice GR Gavai observed that the law on enforcement of arbitral award would remain the same for everyone including the government and its statutory corporations. A single-judge bench of the high court is dealing with the award execution proceedings.

DAMEPL, which operated the Airport Express Line in Delhi, is seeking to recover ₹4,520 crore, including interest, that it claims Delhi Metro still owed it. DMRC has so far paid ₹2,700 crore towards the award.


Under its contract with DMRC, the Reliance Infra subsidiary was to run the airport line till 2038. It stopped the operations citing safety issues due to structural defects in a viaduct made by DMRC and withdrew from the contract while invoking the arbitration clause.

An arbitration tribunal in May 2017 accepted DAMEPL's claim.

On Wednesday, attorney general R Venkataramani, appearing for DMRC, informed the top court that it had written to its two equity shareholders - the union housing and urban affairs ministry and the Delhi government - for working out the modalities and giving a timeframe for the payment to DAMEPL.

The court told DMRC "not to repeat" actions like delaying execution of arbitration awards.

The apex court had earlier this week criticised the government for not abiding by the arbitration awards and asked Venkataramani to give a timeline for the payment of the balance amount to DAMEPL.

It said on Wednesday that the government should not give speeches everywhere about promoting India as an international arbitration hub when it was not serious about executions.