Future seeks urgent hearing on RIL deal

NEW DELHI: Future Group on Friday urged the Supreme Court to grant an urgent hearing of its appeal against a Delhi high court order which seeks to stall its $3.4 billion sale of retail assets to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) apart from attaching the assets of the Group’s chairman Kishore Biyani and other directors.

Appearing for the group companies, senior advocates Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi requested Chief Justice of India (CJI) NV Ramana to hear the appeal preferably on September 9—a week before the Delhi high court is set to consider initiating compliance proceedings.

Salve informed the CJI that the high court order, if implemented at the instance of Amazon.com Inc, will have far-reaching consequences, and therefore, the Future Group was seeking a hearing by the top court before the high court considers the matter on the next date.

“The urgency is that a single judge had passed certain orders on March 18 prescribing various sanctions. The case will now come up before the single judge on September 17. Either the high court hearing should be kept off, or grant us a hearing on September

9 so that we have enough time,” Salve requested the CJI.

Salve complained that the single judge order of the Delhi high court has gone beyond the scope of the enforceability of a Singapore-based Emergency Arbitrator (EA) award in favour of Amazon.

Rohatgi, on his part, submitted that the single judge on August 17 gave Future Group four weeks to obtain a stay order from the Supreme Court, failing which it will restore the March 18 order on stalling the deal with RIL. “Our entire deal of ₹25,000 crore has been held up because of the single judge order,” he added. At this, CJI Ramana said that he would look into the file to pass appropriate order on listing.

The legal battle could well decide the future of the Indian retail landscape. Last year, a pandemic-scarred Future sold its retail business to Reliance. Amazon has claimed this violates earlier agreements it had with Future. Future has said it has not broken any of the terms of that agreement.

In a major victory for e-commerce Amazon, the Supreme Court on August 6 ruled that Future Group is bound by an emergency award that restrains it from a $3.4 billion sale of retail assets to RIL.