Antrix questions Delhi HC jurisdiction

The ISRO's Antrix Corporation today questioned a Delhi High Court order which had termed as "not maintainable" the PSU's pleas to a Bengaluru court against an award of USD 672 million to Devas Multimedia as damages.
The Antrix contended before a bench of justices Indira Bannerjee and Sanjeev Sachdeva that the Delhi High Court has no appellate or supervisory role over the Bangalore city civil court where its plea against the arbitral award was pending.
A single-judge bench of the high court had on February 28 said the Bengaluru court cannot grant any relief sought by the Antrix in its plea there and had asked the company to file its petition against the award here.

The PSU has challenged the single judge's order which had also asked it to furnish details of its assets as well as its audited balance sheets besides it profit and loss accounts for the past three years.
The single judge's order had come on Devas plea to attach the Antrix' bank accounts to secure the amount awarded to it by the Paris-based International Chamber of Commerce's arbitration body, the International Court of Arbitration, by its September 2015 ruling.
The arbitral body had ruled in favour of Devas as Antrix had "unlawfully" terminated a deal with it in 2011, citing national security reasons.

Devas, today, opposed Antrix' appeal against the single judge order of February 28, saying the plea was not maintainable.

The division bench subsequently heard arguments on the issue of maintainability by Antrix and Devas with the hearing likely to continue next week.
Antrix argued that there were legal consequences of not complying with the February 28 order of the single-judge bench of the court and so it was liable to be challenged.
It said the civil court in Bengaluru should be the one deciding whether its plea was maintainable.
Devas, on the other hand, argued that the order of the single judge was not liable to be challenged.