By IANS
New Delhi : The Supreme Court Friday paved the way for the ambitious Jan 15 launch of the country’s biggest initial public offering (IPO) by the Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Power Ltd (RPL), holding that no court order anywhere in the country on any lawsuit against it will come in the way.
A bench headed by Chief Justice K.G. Balakrishnan gave the order on a fresh plea by the RPL seeking to restrain a Mumbai civil court from hearing a petition filed by Ghanshyam Mehta allegedly to stall the launch of the IPO.
While restraining the Mumbai civil judge from hearing the lawsuit, the apex court bench, which also included Justice R.V. Raveendran, said, “No ex-parte order against the launch by any court in India will affect it.”
Reliance Power got immunity from judicial hindrance barely two days after the same bench blocked another lawsuit pending before the Gujarat High Court from coming in the way of the IPO launch.
The bench stalled the Gujarat High Court proceedings Wednesday on a petition by RPL seeking transfer, either to the Bombay High Court or the apex court, of the petitions filed against it Tuesday in Gujarat.
Appearing Friday for RPL, senior counsel Harish Salve and Mukul Rohtagi virtually repeated their arguments before the bench that filing of the petitions before the Mumbai civil judge were meant to stall the company’s public offer launch.
The two counsels asserted before the bench that it had acceded to their request of restraining the Gujarat High Court from hearing the petitions against the launch and they had a strong case for restraining the Mumbai court as well.
Seeking the apex court’s direction to restrain the Mumbai court from hearing the lawsuits, counsel pointed out that the IPO is being launched to fund RPL’s ambitious power projects with a capacity of 28,000 MW and the lawsuits were “an abuse of the process of law and court and malafide”.
Salve told the bench that his client apprehended that there were several unknown people who are trying to subvert the proposed launch of its IPO despite it having been cleared by the Security Exchange Board of India (SEBI) after hearing objections of various parties.
Asserting that the petitions filed at various courts are “part of a vicious and malicious campaign by a handful of persons to hold the launch of the IPO to ransom”, Salve said the malafide intention of the petitioner was also borne out from the fact that they moved the court at the eleventh hour.
The counsel said the petitioner approached the Mumbai court only on Thursday despite the fact that RPL had submitted its Draft Red Herring Prospectus (DRHP) to SEBI to clear the launch on Oct 3 last year.
Additionally, various channels associated with the launch, including media, banking and broking, have been fully activated, said the counsel, adding the firm has already been presented before hundreds of institutional investors across the globe.
The counsel apprehended that any last-minute hurdle cropping up in the way of the launch of the IPO will not merely affect the business interest of the firm but also be a setback to its reputation.