Supreme Court Stays All Proceedings In Delhi High Court On Amazon-Future Case

The Supreme Court on Monday stayed further proceedings before single judge and Division Bench of Delhi High Court in Amazon-Future-Reliance case.

A bench comprising Justices RF Nariman, BR Gavai and Hrishikesh Roy passed the order in an special leave petition filed by Amazon.Com NV Investment Holdings LLC.

Amazon has moved the Supreme Court challenging an order dated March 22 passed by a Division Bench of the Delhi High Court staying a single-judge order which had directed upheld the Emergency Award passed by a Singapore Tribunal halting the Reliance-Future deal.

"The matter will anyway end up here. Why don't we finish hearing", Justice Nariman said at the outset when the matter was taken.

The SC-bench said that it will stay the proceedings in the High Court and will hear the matter. The matter will be listed on May 4. Parties have been directed to complete their pleadings by then.

A single judge bench of Justice Midha of the Delhi High Court had earlier allowed the application field by Amazon to enforce the emergency award against the Future-Reliance deal.

The Single Bench had held that the emergency arbitrator is an arbitrator for all the intents and purposes under Section 17(1) of Arbitration and Conciliation Act and an order passed by such an emergency arbitrator is enforceable under sec. 17 (2) of the Act.

The Single Bench also held that the Respondent Future Group has raised a vague plea of nullity without substantiating the same. Moreover, the court went ahead to held that the petitioner's (Amazon.com) investment does not violate any law. In view of this, the Court rejected the contentions of the Future Retail Group with a cost of Rs. 20 lakhs to be deposited in PM fund of Covid 19 to be used in vaccination of senior citizens belonging to the below poverty line group. The Court ordered the same to be deposited within 2 weeks and the same shall be put on record within 1 week thereafter.

On March 22, a division bench comprising Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh stayed the single bench order on appeal by Future Group.

Amazon had earlier moved the Supreme Court against an interim order of the Delhi High Court Division Bench which had stayed the status quo ordered by the single bench in December last year on Future-Reliance deal.

In that case, a bench headed by Justice RF Nariman of Supreme Court had barred the NCLT from sanctioning scheme of merger of Reliance-Future companies, while allowing the continuation of the proceedings before the Tribunal.

Click here to read/download the order