HC dismisses Reliance's plea on airport pvt bids

New Delhi, Apr 21: The Delhi High court today dismissed the petition of the Anil Ambani-owned Reliance-ASA Consortium challenging the Government's decision to award the bids for modernisation of Delhi and Mumbai airports.

A division bench of Justice T S Thakur and Justice B N Chaturvedi justified the decision of the government in awarding the contracts to the private bidders to GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACS.

Senior Counsel Mukul Rohtagi appearing for the Reliance had submitted that there was ''a hidden element'' in ignoring the bids of the Reliance Airport Developers, despite it being the highest bidder for Delhi and technologically-best equipped for the Mumbai airport.

The government had committed ''a breach of contract'' by awarding the bids to GMR-Fraport and GVK-ACS for Delhi and Mumbai respectively, Mr Rohtagi said.

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

Additional Solicitor General(ASG) Gopal Subramanium appearing for the government submitted that the bids were awarded to the private companies for the better interest of public as the airports were to be modernised before the next Commonwealth Games in the Capital in 2010.

UNI