New Delhi, Oct 31 (PTI) The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation on Monday told the Delhi High Court that a meeting with the Centre and the city government is scheduled to discuss modalities on payment of the balance arbitral award to the Reliance Infrastructure-owned Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited.

The DMRC told the court that the meeting is fixed for November 10 and some proposals are expected to come out of it.

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The high court was hearing an application from the Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) which said the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has paid it only Rs 166.44 crore on March 14.

The DAMEPL has also sought direction to the corporation for a payment of Rs 4427.41 crore by attachment of its bank accounts and fixed deposits. The interest continues to apply till the date of actual payment by the DMRC, it said.

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Justice V Kameswar Rao was informed by senior advocate Maninder Singh, appearing for the DMRC, that Attorney General R Venkataramani was held up in a separate engagement and the matter be deferred to November 18 as by then judgment debtor DMRC is expected to inform the court about the modalities to make the payment to DAMEPL.

The high court listed the matter for further hearing on November 18 and said the additional affidavit filed by the DMRC during the day should have been filed earlier.

"How will you implement the last order on modalities," the judge asked the DMRC's counsel. To this, Singh submitted that it will be decided in the November 10 meeting.

Senior advocate Jaideep Gupta, representing DAMEPL, urged the court to ask the DMRC managing director to be present in court on the next date of hearing to address the issue of payment.

"They are not taking the high court's order seriously. The last hearing was on October 10 and they knew that the matter would come up on October 31. Still they have kept the meeting on November 10," he contended.

The DMRC, in its additional affidavit, said the Union Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs through its October 28 letter had informed that it has been decided by the Centre to convene a meeting on November 10 between the Government of India, the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi, the DMRC and the lending banks to "discuss the matter" pending before the court.

On October 10, the DMRC had told the court that it has requested the Centre and the Delhi government for funds for payment of the balance arbitral award to DAMEPL.

The DMRC had said that if any adverse orders were passed against it at this point of time, millions of commuters will be simply told they cannot use the Delhi Metro.

The attorney general had said that though it was important to comply with the decree for payment of award to DAMEPL, the concerns of the Delhi Metro were equally important.

The law officer had sought two weeks to place before the court the modalities regarding the payment to be made to DAMEPL.

In September, the high court had granted four weeks to the DMRC to make outstanding payment in relation to the arbitral award, failing which it would be "constrained" to call for the appearance of the DMRC's managing director.

On March 10, the high court had directed the DMRC to pay the over Rs 4,600 crore arbitral award along with interest to DAMEPL in two equal installments within two months.

The first and second installments were to be paid on or before April 30 and May 31, respectively.

The direction had come on DAMEPL's execution petition filed against the DMRC over the arbitral award passed in its favour on May 11, 2017.

An arbitral tribunal had ruled in favour of DAMEPL, which had pulled out from running the Airport Express metro line over safety issues, and accepted its claim that running the operations on the line was not viable due to structural defects in the viaduct through which the train would pass.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)