NEW DELHI: Putting to an end the dispute over modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, the Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed an appeal by a Anil Ambani Group firm challenging the Delhi High Court verdict upholding the award of contracts to consortia led by GMR and GVK.
"The appeal sans merit and deserves to be dismissed," a bench comprising justice Arijit Pasayat and justice S H Kapadia said. "The Supreme Court's verdict vindicates the stand of the government and paves the way for building world class infrastructure in the country," civil aviation minister Praful Patel said.
Modernisation contracts for airports in Mumbai and Delhi had been awarded to two private groups in February, but a consortium led by Ambani alleged irregularities after failing in bidding process.
Reliance Airport Developers, which was in the race for the two airports, had challenged the April 21 verdict of the high court, which had held that the government's action was in no way discriminatory, illogical or illegal.
While questioning the conduct of Reliance company during bidding, the court criticised evaluation committee for altering the scoring norms saying it had no business to expand or narrow down the scoring pattern. The Bench said that experience in property development is different from the experience in the infrastructure development.
In its petition, Reliance has contended that the government and the AAI deliberately amended the tender norms to favour GMR and GVK-led consortia. They had also questioned the option given to GMR for picking an airport of its choice (Delhi) for modernisation after opening of the financial bid and has alleged that the lowering of the benchmark from 80 to 50% was totally arbitrary.
The company had contended that as the highest financial bidder for the Delhi Airport and as the highest technical bidder for the Mumbai Airport, it should have been awarded at least one of the projects. GMR, GVK and government said during the hearing that the entire process was fair and transparent and there was no favouritism in awarding the contract.
While upholding the technical parameters adopted in awarding the contracts, the High Court had said the government and the AAI had "absolute discretion to vary the tender requirements or amend the term of RFP (Request for Proposal)" as per the requirements of the project.
The Delhi airport is being upgraded by a consortium led by the GMR group in collaboration with German airport operator Fraport, Eraman Malaysia, state-run Airports Authority of India and Indian infrastructure firm IDFC Ltd.
The contract to revamp country's busiest airport at Mumbai was won by a consortium led by GVK Industries and Airports Company of South Africa. Both airports, which handled nearly half the estimated 50 million passengers who travelled in India last year, fall well below international standards.