HC reserves its order in airport privaisation row

New Delhi, Mar 22 (UNI) Delhi High Court today reserved its judgement in the airport privatisation row after hearing the arguments of Reliance Airport Developers, government and two successful bidders -- GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACS -- for about two months.

The Anil Ambani-owned Reliance-ADA had challenged the government's decision to award the Delhi and Mumbai airport modernisation projects to GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACS, respectively.

While concluding its arguments before a division bench of Justice TS Thakur and Justice BN Chaturvedi, the GMR today said that the Reliance's contention that GETE, headed by Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Chief E Sreedharan, didn't consider the Inter-Ministerial Group's (IMG) observation was totally fallacious and baseless.

The government had committed ''a breach of contract'' by awarding the bids to GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACS for Delhi and Mumbai respectively, said Senior Counsel Mukul Rohtagi appearing for Reliance-ASA Consortium .

''It was abuse of power and did not go in favour of public interest,'' he argued.

Had the bid for Mumbai airport gone to the Relaince, nobody would have questioned the decision of the governmnent, he said.

He said the Airport Authority of India (AAI) should not have called all the bidders on January 31 and given a preferential treatment to the GMR-Fraport.

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