After the controversy over pricing of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin, the Ambani brothers are locked in another court battle.
A consortium led by Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Energy Ltd, which includes Hyundai, has moved the Supreme Court against the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation's decision to disqualify it from the bidding process for the country's longest sea link expressway.
The disqualification means Mukesh Ambani-controlled Sea King Infrastructure Ltd, the only remaining bidder, is set to bag the contract for the Rs 4,000-crore Mumbai Trans Harbour Link project.
The special leave petition filed by the consortium on June 19 is slated to come up for hearing on Monday. MSRDC is the nodal agency for implementing the 22.5 km project that will connect Sewri in the island city with Nhava across the creek.
The other two bidders, L&T-Gammon and Iffco, opted out of the race and did not submit final technical and financial bids. This has left the field open for Reliance Industries' Sea King and, in the process, put the competitive bidding process under a cloud.
REL first moved the Bombay high court after MSRDC disqualified the REL consortium on the ground that one of the major partners, Hyundai, did not meet the criterion of Rs 200 crore (Rs 2 billion) net worth during the year.
REL had argued that MSRDC's financial consultants had not cited any specific accounting standards while disqualifying its bid.
It also said that even if one partner was not able to meet the net worth criterion, REL alone could meet it for the entire consortium.
But MSRDC stuck to its position that every company in the consortium has to meet the criteria of net worth independently according to the bid document.
Even though it found the disqualification by MSRDC arbitrary, the high court refused to intervene in what it described as an administrative decision of MSRDC.
The judges, however, provided interim relief to REL by restraining MSRDC from opening the bids.
It also allowed the REL-led consortium four weeks to appeal against the order, following which the company moved the apex court.
