HC hearing on Reliance put on hold till Monday

Case tossed from one court to another.

The Delhi High Court has deferred to Monday the hearing on Reliance Airport Developers' petition seeking quashing of the award of Delhi and Mumbai airport modernisation contracts to GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACSA, respectively.

The deferrment came amid a scramble, with the case being tossed from one court to another. The matter was initially listed before a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Markandeya Katju and Justice Madan B Lokur when they assembled for the day.

But the chief justice, without any comment, transferred it to a division bench of Justice M K Sharma and Justice O P Dwivedi.

However, the court of Justice M K Sharma sought some time to peruse the documents relating to the case and suggested the matter be taken up on Monday.

At this stage, R Karanjiwala, counsel representing the GVK Group of industries, intervened and urged Justice Sharma to refer the matter to another bench.

He later told PTI he did not want the matter to be heard by Justice Dwivedi on account of judicial propriety as the judge's daughter was working with him.

Following the submission, Justice Sharma transferred the matter back to the chief justice's court for reference.

After being briefed about the developments, the chief justice announced that the matter would be taken up by a division bench headed by Justice T S Thakur and posted the matter for hearing on Monday.