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Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. vs. Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt. Ltd.

Not available · 2024 INSC 292Decided 10 Apr 2024
Not available

Background

DMRC and DAMEPL (a consortium including Reliance Infrastructure) were parties to a 2008 public-private partnership agreement to build and run the Delhi Airport Metro Express line. A dispute arose over alleged construction/safety defects, DAMEPL terminated the agreement in 2012, and the matter went to arbitration. The arbitral tribunal ruled in DAMEPL's favour. The Delhi High Court's Division Bench later set aside that award as "patently illegal," but a 2-judge Supreme Court bench restored the arbitral award in 2021. DMRC, a state-owned company, then filed this curative petition, the rarest and final remedy available in Indian law, against the Supreme Court's own earlier decision.

Decision Breakdown

The Supreme Court allowed the curative petition, an extraordinary and very sparingly used power. It held that the Court's own 2021 judgment had wrongly interfered with the Delhi High Court's well-reasoned decision, without properly applying the limited grounds on which courts can interfere with arbitral awards under Section 34 of the Arbitration Act (patent illegality, perversity). The Court found that the High Court's original view, that the tribunal's award was based on an unreasonable interpretation of the termination clause and ignored crucial evidence, was correct, and that upholding the flawed award had caused a "grave miscarriage of justice" to a public utility. The curative petitions were allowed, restoring the parties to the position they were in when the High Court's decision was delivered and directing refund of amounts paid under the now-set-aside award.

Lesson Learnt

The Supreme Court's curative jurisdiction exists to correct a "grave miscarriage of justice," even in the Court's own final decisions, but it is meant to be used only in truly exceptional cases, not as a routine fourth or fifth round of appeal. Courts have very limited power to second-guess an arbitral tribunal, but that power exists precisely to prevent a patently illegal award from standing.

Official source (sci.gov.in)View Judgment (PDF)

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