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Delhi HC lifts ‘status quo’ order against Future Retail-Reliance deal

Indian courts

Relief for Future Retail in its legal tussle with Amazon. The Delhi High Court stayed the single judge bench order directing a ‘status quo’ on Future Retail, Reliance deal till the next hearing.

CNBC-TV18’s Ashmit Kumar reports that the division bench of Delhi High Court said that Amazon had no business seeking a status quo because they are not interested in this deal. It also observed that the statutory authorities had been asked to maintain status quo when they themselves were not even present before the Delhi High Court.

The court also recorded that as part of Amazon’s investment agreement into Future Coupons, Future Retail was not a signatory to that investment agreement.

With these findings the Delhi High Court vacated the status quo and cleared the decks for the deal.

Watch video for more.

Disclosure: RIL, the promoter of Reliance Jio, also controls Network18, the parent company of CNBCTV18.com.

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Future Retail seeks ad-interim injunction against Amazon from writing to regulators

amazon future retail

It was a day-long hearing at the Delhi High Court in Future Retail versus Amazon case, with allegations and counter-allegations flying thick and fast.

Future Retail had knocked on the court’s door for relief. This, after a Singapore-based arbitrator, on a plea from Amazon restrained Future Retail from proceeding with its Rs 24,700 crore deal with Reliance Retail, reports Ashmit Kumar.

Watch video for more.

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Sudarshan TV case: Digital media spreading venomous hatred, government tells SC

Where the debate over SC and HC judges' appointment in India stands

Digital media is “spreading venomous hatred,” said the government to the Supreme Court during the Sudarshan TV case hearing. It also said that it was not necessary to regulate electronic and print media as a self-regulatory mechanism was already in place.

The Supreme Court on Friday had questioned Sudarshan TV over its ‘Bindas Bol’ programme, whose promo had claimed that the channel would show the ‘big expose on conspiracy to infiltrate Muslims in government service’, and asked whether media can be allowed to target the whole set of communities.

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Supreme Court to hear plea seeking disclosure of banks’ annual inspection reports

Low, stable inflation critical for spurring growth: RBI

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a plea seeking disclosure of annual inspection and risk assessment reports of banks. The apex court has issued notices to several banks.

Last year, in April the top court had directed the RBI to disclose the reports. However, in December the court had stayed its own order. The ruling came on an application filed by banks, which said such information cannot be shared without first giving them an opportunity to oppose it.

RTI applications have been piling up at the RBI ever since the court ruled that the banking regulator must reveal all information under RTI, except those excluded by law.

 

 

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Tata versus Mistry: Mere existence of veto right has been misconstrued, says Abhishek Manu Singhvi

Cyrus Mistry.

Two weeks after the company law appellate tribunal ruled in favour of Cyrus Mistry’s reinstatement as the chairman of Tata Sons, Tata’s have moved the Supreme Court terming the order as “abhorrent to corporates” and “dangerous.” Tata Sons have argued that the verdict has put the functioning of the company at risk.

Cyrus Mistry was removed as chairman of Tata Sons in October 2016. Tata’s have recruited a crack legal team that consists of Harish Salve, Mukul Rohatgi, Mohan Parasaran and Abhishek Manu Singhvi to argue in the top court. To discuss this CNBC-TV18 spoke to Abhishek Manu Singhvi Tata Sons’ counsel.

Singhvi said, “The entire case appears to have proceeded on the assumption that because Tata Trusts who have a veto power and affirmative vote power which has never been exercised in the 100-year-old history of the company, the mere fact that that power is there and that some informal discussions are held between the board of Tata Sons and the individual nominees of the trusts without ever exercising such veto power, that amounts to prejudice? That to prejudice of the gigantic kind which suggests that the company is liable to be wound up?”

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Youth Dialogues: Delhi School of Economics students discuss the slowdown

As CNBC-TV18 turns 20, it takes this opportunity to look back at how the economy has done over the last 20 years and decode where it stands at the current juncture.

To get a sense of what the youth think on the issue, Ashmit Kumar spoke with students of Delhi School of Economics who shared their thoughts and perspective on the subject and deliberated on how the economy is likely to do in the near future, and what are the available solutions to ride out of the slowdown.

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Maharashtra, Goa top in justice delivery; Bihar, UP worst performers

Maharashtra topped the list of India”s first-ever ranking of states on justice delivery among the 18 large and mid-sized states.

Maharashtra is followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu, while among the small states Goa topped the list followed by Sikkim and Himachal Pradesh, according to the India Justice Report (IJR) prepared by Tata Trusts in collaboration with Centre for social Justice, Common Cause, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative, Daksh, TISS-Prayas and Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.

As many as 29 states and 7 union territories’ performance has been assessed, and it has been pointed out that justice delivery not only includes courts, but it also includes prisons, police as well as legal aid and factors such as budget, infrastructure, diversity, personnel and work load.

On the bottom end, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are the worst performers.

One aspect that the Trust clearly points out is that relatively better  performance cannot be seen as a pat on the back, as even the best performing states have fared very poorly on many indices. The report should be taken as an indication of the lapses that need to be covered, it noted.

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Jaypee Infra Case: NCLAT hints at modification of NBCC bid to suit interests of stakeholders

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) heard the Jaypee Infratech case today and hinted at a modification of the NBCC bid to suit interests of all stakeholders.

The NCLAT has given much-needed clarity as far as deadlock is concerned over Jaypee Infratech’s Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) case.

Keep in mind that the lenders had opposed, very clearly, the bid by NBCC for a number of reasons. One is that there were too many siders that NBCC had attached in terms of potential tax liabilities in the future in terms of clearances that they had to get. Therefore, subject to all clearances the lenders were not happy, they had voted against it and that is why the bone of contention was that once the NBCC’s offer is rejected, what’s next?

That is the question the NCLAT tried to answer today. The NCLAT said that the NBCC offer, on many fronts, looks promising and as far as all stakeholders are concerned, NBCC did a balancing act and to achieve that balancing act even further, the NCLAT has said that it’s important for a representative of lenders as well as representatives of NBCC to come before the court and for them the NCLAT to amend it, to modify in the interest of all the stakeholders to make it more palatable.

Having said that the NCLAT was also very sharply critical of what the NCLAT call ‘backdoor negotiation’ with the third party which happens to be Adani in this case.

Therefore, the NCLAT laying out the roadmap clearly that they are still for the NBCC bid, they still will be batting for them, they still will be looking to modify it to suit the interest of the lenders and that exercise is scheduled to happen on July 17 – that’s when the hearing will resume in this case.

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No mechanism to check denial of benefits, UIDAI CEO tells Supreme Court

MNREGS, rural income

PowerPoint presentations are a common sight during boardroom meetings – college students too at times have to resort to it for their assignments. But how often have you heard about someone making a PowerPoint presentation in a court room, that too of the Supreme Court of India and in a landmark case like the Aadhaar hearing?

In a first of its kind, today, Ajay Bhushan Pandey, the chief executive officer of Unique Identification Authority of India or UIDAI made a PowerPoint presentation to a constitution bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra. Pandey’s presentation highlighted an introduction to Aadhaar, the technology behind it and the privacy safeguards in place. He however made three big concessions.

First, there was no institutional mechanism to check denial of benefits despite authentication.

Second, Pandey conceded that biometrics cannot be relied upon completely.

Third, the UIDAI CEO conceded that there were authentication problems in rural areas on account of bad internet access and electricity issues.

Ashmit Kumar caught up with experts to discuss the issues highlighted in the presentation.