Nepal apex court rejects hotel's plea in property dispute case

Nepal's Supreme Court today rejected a top five-star hotel's plea to halt the process of arbitration to settle a Rs 200 crore property dispute case with a recreation centre which manages casinos in the country.
The apex court has rejected Hotel Soaltee Crowne's bid to halt the process of arbitration to settle the dispute with Nepal Recreation Centre (NRC), senior advocate Narendra Gautam appearing for NRC said.
"It is not required to issue interim order immediately regarding the matter of appointment of arbitrator and its process or decision, the court said in its order," Gautam said.
There has been a two-year-long pending case between the two business establishments over the property dispute in which the Supreme Court and Patan Appellate Court have been involved.

Hotel Soaltee, whose 6 per cent share is held by India's Oberoi Group of Hotels and Nepal Recreation centre (NRC) had signed an agreement for leasing land and building situated in Kathmandu as well as providing exclusive rights of casino license to the NRC in May 1993.
However, the hotel allegedly breached the agreement unilaterally and leased the building complex to third party, Casino Majhong, despite the fact that the NRC is supposed to control the premises for another 10 years.

NRC chairman RD Tuttle had filed a case in the Supreme Court seeking compensation of Rs 200 crore from the hotel for breaching the contract unilaterally.

NRC has sent a letter to the hotel a couple of years ago to either return back the land and building for the remaining period of the contract or pay Rs 200 crore as compensation.
However, the hotel has reportedly been ignoring claims of NRC that the contract has already terminated.
Tuttle said that the contract still exists and blames the Hotel for dishonouring the contract.
"Since the hotel does not possess the license to operate the casino, as per the clause 8.6 of the contract, the hotel should return the premises to the NRC," Tutle said.
"But the hotel did not honour the contract and provided the premises to the third party without our consent, which clearly violates the contract," he added.

"Now with the new court decision, the hotel has no other way than going for arbitration to settle the multi-crore property dispute," advocate Narendra Gautam said.
Soaltees' secretary Lila Bahadur Khatri has said that the contract has already been terminated as the NRC did not pay its royalty to the government for the past few years.