SC rejects Devas plea to restrain liquidator

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Tuesday turned down a plea by Devas Multimedia Pvt. Ltd to restrain the liquidator from taking any step in relation to the arbitration pending before the Delhi high court between Devas and Central government-owned Antrix Corporation Ltd.

Devas has filed proceedings before the Delhi high court for enforcement of an international tribunal award for $562.5 million plus interest in its favour.

The bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian declined to issue any interim order and asked Devas to go back to the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) where its appeal is pending. On May 25, the Bengaluru branch of the National Company

Law Tribunal (NCLT) had ordered liquidation of Devas on grounds that the company was incorporated in a fraudulent manner to siphon funds to dubious foreign accounts.

The NCLT order had come on a winding up petition by Antrix Corporation, a commercial arm of the ISRO.

It further directed the official liquidator to take expeditious steps to liquidate the company in order to prevent it from perpetuating its fraudulent activities and abusing the process of law in enforcing the award passed in 2015 by the arbitration tribunal of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), and submit the report by July 7. Devas challenged this order before the NCLAT, which issued notices to Antrix and others on June 7 and fixed the matter for hearing next on July 8.