Opinion
DMRC, not Reliance, is being arrogant, Mr Mehta
Summary
If to demand return of one’s property wrongfully kept in someone else’s possession is arrogance, there is only one word to describe every thief who relinquishes his loot on being arrested: magnanimousIf Franz Kafka were alive, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta would have a fan. Mr Mehta recently told the Delhi High Court that it was sheer arrogance for Delhi Airport Metro Express Pvt Ltd, part of the Anil Ambani group, to insist that state-owned Delhi Metro Rail Corporation should pony up the ₹7,200 crore DMRC owes it, so that several group companies at risk of defaulting on loan repayment could avoid bankruptcy. This is strange logic, Mr Mehta.
None other than the Supreme Court of India has ratified the arbitral award of ₹7,200 crore to DAMEP. What belongs to the Reliance ADA company is with the state-owned enterprise. If to demand return of one’s property wrongfully kept in someone else’s possession is arrogance, there is only one word to describe every thief who relinquishes his loot on being arrested: magnanimous.
The Anil Ambani group has many companies in serious financial trouble. Reliance Capital has had its management superseded by the RBI, most recently. Inability to pay off debts is the proximate cause of these company’s troubles. A group company could bail out other companies in the group, when it has surplus cash on its books. DAMEPL would have surplus cash, were DMRC to pay it the money it owes.
Mr Mehta offered, strangely enough, to use the services of his client, the government, to intercede with the banks to not call in their dues from Anil Ambani companies. Really, Mr Mehta? Should DMRC settle its dues to DAMEPL so that these could be funnelled to the banks or should the State, as DMRC’s owner, arm-twist the banks to bend procedure, depart from established norms for debt repayment, so that a state-owned enterprise could flout an order from the Supreme Court to pay damages?
The notion that the state can play fast and loose with norms as it chooses so that one of its own privileged companies can escape compliance with the order of the highest court of the land constitutes arrogance, apart from arbitrariness and the opposite of ease of doing business.
DMRC can raise a loan from the market, or the government could give it a loan, to finance its payment of compensation to DAMEPL. The total amount of credit in the system would remain the same, but it would be borne by those who should bear it, and avoid needless bankruptcy complications for a set of companies in the Anil Ambani group. For a company to face bankruptcy because it is unable to collect the money it is owed, so that it could repay its loans, is systemic dysfunction. For the state to initiate and sustain such dysfunction is to mark the traverse from arrogance to hubris and the inevitable fall.
