NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court will hear on May 5 a special leave petition filed by Reliance Airports Developers Private Limited challenging a Delhi High Court judgment. The High Court rejected its petition seeking cancellation of the contracts awarded to two companies for privatisation and modernisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports.

A Bench consisting of Justices Ruma Pal and Dalveer Bhandari fixed the date after hearing senior counsel for Reliance Developers Mukul Rohtagi, who said the two-week protection granted by the High Court was due to expire on May 5 and the Government might hand over physical possession of the airports to GMR Infrastructure Limited and GVK Industries Limited.

The SLP raised the question whether it was permissible for the Centre to unilaterally change the tender conditions after evaluation, especially when the alteration would operate to the prejudice of one bidder — the petitioner.

The SLP said the two firms, which were awarded the contracts, knew everything about the bids made by the others and they were deliberately given time to make a bid higher than that of the petitioner.

The tenders were opened on January 31. The next day Reliance wrote to the Government as well as the Airports Authority of India, pointing out the irregularities and illegalities in the award of the tenders.

``Benchmark reduced''

The SLP said the Government illegally and arbitrarily reduced the benchmark of technical expertise from 80 to 50 per cent to favour the rivals of Reliance Airports Developer.

The High Court overlooked the fact that the petitioner was the highest bidder for the Delhi airport and was technically best suited for the Mumbai airport. Further, the respondents arbitrarily applied two different yardsticks for the airports sought to be privatised under the same tender process.

The SLP sought quashing of the April 21 judgment and an interim stay of its operation.

It also sought a direction to cancel the contracts awarded to GMR and GVK Industries.

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