Supreme Court has agreed to expedite Amazon's plea on Future Retail On Tuesday, the Supreme Court said that it would expedite the hearing on Amazon's interim plea seeking preservation of Future Retail Limited's (FRL) assets apart from resumption of arbitration on merger deal with Reliance Retail Supreme Court today said it would list for hearing "as early as possible" the interim plea of Amazon seeking preservation of Future Retail's assets besides resumption of arbitration over the merger deal with Reliance Retail.A bench headed by chief justice N V Ramana, which had earlier fixed Amazon's plea for hearing on March 23, told senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, appearing for the US firm, that one of the judges, Justice Hima Kohli, was unavailable and hence the hearing cannot take place on the scheduled date.I think by that time she (Justice Kohli) may come.
She had some problems.
I will list it as early as possible, subject to the availability of the bench," the chief justicesaid.Mr Subramanium then urged the bench to hear the matter on April 1, 2022.Earlier, Amazon had apprehended the "disappearance" of assets and sought an interim order from the top court to ensure the preservation of assets of Future Retail besides resumption of arbitration over Future's merger deal with Reliance Retail.The bench had taken note of the allegations of the US firm that the "applecart was being upset" by its rivals and asked the Future group firms, FRL and Future Coupons Limited(FCPL), to respond to the interim plea of Amazon and fixed the hearing on March 23.Amazon and Future group are engaged in multi-forum litigation on the issue of Future Retail's merger deal to the tune ofRs24,500 crore with Reliance Retailafter Amazon dragged the latter to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre in October 2020.It has been alleged by Amazon that on March 3, as many as 600 stores of Future Retail were taken away by Reliance.
The plea was vehemently objected to by the Future group lawyers on Tuesday.Supreme Court was told by Amazon that besides seeking resumption of arbitral proceedings, it wanted an order so that the Future Retail's assets are there for it if it wins the arbitration as the "applecart was being upset".The bench is hearing Amazon's appeal against the January 5 order of the Delhi High Court, which stayed the arbitration proceedings before the arbitral tribunal over Future Retail's merger deal with Reliance Retail.