The Hindu : Business : Apex court allows Reliance Power to go ahead with public offering

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Apex court allows Reliance Power to go ahead with public offering

J. Venkatesan

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday permitted Reliance Power to go ahead with its launch of the Rs. 10,000- crore Initial Public Offering (IPO) as scheduled on January 15, notwithstanding any order passed by any other court in the country.

A three-Judge Bench comprising Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan, Justice R. V. Raveendran and Justice J. M. Panchal passed this interim order on an urgent application moved by Reliance Power seeking stay of the proceedings in a suit initiated in Mumbai against the launch of the IPO.

After hearing senior counsel Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for RPL, the Bench, in its brief order, said “interim stay of the proceedings in the suit before the City Civil Court, Mumbai. The IPO of RPL may be continued despite any interim ex parte order passed by any other court.”

Mr. Salve submitted “two days ago it was a petition filed in Gujarat High Court. Now a suit is filed in Mumbai. This has become a flagrant abuse of the law. What is going on against the company is terrible.

There will be international repercussions if the IPO is stopped by some court in some remote corner of the country.

The lead managers, who are public sector banks may not like to disobey the order and the company will be in trouble.” He pleaded that the court should pass an order that the IPO could go on notwithstanding any order passed or to be passed by any court in the country.

In its application, the RPL said “there is a mala fide and an illegal campaign by certain interested persons to somehow stall or delay the IPO, which has been approved by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and other statutory authorities. The said IPO is for the purposes of establishing large thermal power projects of the Government of India with private participation to generate 28,000 MW of power.” If an order of injunction was not passed the company would be greatly prejudiced and irreparable loss would be caused, the application said.

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