India’s top court, supreme court on Monday (7) issued a contempt notice to Indian billionaire, Reliance ADAG chairman Anil Ambani and others of his group following a contempt petition filed by Swedish multinational company, Ericsson.
The petitioner accused that the debt-ridden Reliance Communications (RCom) is flouting the previous apex court order asking RCom to pay Rs 5.5 billion to Ericsson.
The top court bench comprising RF Nariman and Vineet Saran issued a notice to Ambani, Reliance Telecommunication chairman Satish Seth, and Reliance Infratel chairperson Chhaya Virani.
The court has also asked all the respondents to file their response to the contempt petition within a month and permitted the Swedish telecommunication giant to file a rejoinder to the responses in seven days thereafter.
Senior lawyers, Kapil Sibal and Mukul Rohatgi representing Ambani and other respondents informed the top court bench that Ambani’s group is ready to pay Rs 1.18bn (Rs 1.28bn minus Rs 100m). However, senior advocate Dushyant Dave representing Ericsson rejected the offer.
On Monday, the supreme court rejected Kapil Sibal’s request to exempt Ambani and other respondents from personal appearance as it is mandatory in a contempt proceeding, on the next date of hearing.
However, in a written order which is available on Tuesday (8) the court has exempted Ambani from appearing at the next date of hearing.
With members of the College of Commissioners and Indian ministers and officials in New Delhi last Friday (28)