{"id":259720,"date":"2022-01-08T10:00:37","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T04:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/?p=259720"},"modified":"2022-01-14T12:09:39","modified_gmt":"2022-01-14T06:39:39","slug":"disinvestment-process-of-air-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.scconline.com\/blog\/post\/2022\/01\/08\/disinvestment-process-of-air-india\/","title":{"rendered":"Dr Subramanian Swamy’s plea that Air India’s Disinvestment is arbitrary, illegal, corrupt: 5-pointer report of Del HC decision"},"content":{"rendered":"

Delhi High Court: <\/strong>The Division Bench of D.N. Patel, CJ and Jyoti Singh, J., dismisses Dr Subramanian Swamy’s plea stating that any delay in the process of disinvestment of Air India would cause loss to public exchequer, besides creating uncertainty amongst the existing employees.<\/p>\n

Factual Matrix<\/span><\/h4>\n

The process of disinvestment of Air India and its subsidiaries commenced in June, 2017 with the in-principle approval of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs. A policy decision to disinvest was taken after following the transparent procedure through multi-layered decision making, involving Inter-Ministerial Group, Core Group of Secretaries on Disinvestment and the empowered Air India Specific Alternative Mechanism at the apex Ministerial level, with support for the entire process from reputed Transaction Adviser, Legal Adviser and Asset Valuer.<\/p>\n

Advertisements inviting bids mentioned that the Government would cease to be responsible for loss after the date of disinvestment.<\/p>\n

Submissions of Dr Subramanian Swamy (Petitioner)<\/span><\/h4>\n

He submitted that the Air India Disinvestment process was arbitrary, unconstitutional, unfair, discriminatory and unreasonable and the same could not be sustained in law. The said process also violated Article 14 of the Constitution of India as well as against the interest of national integrity and security due to an ongoing investigation against Air Asia (India) Private Limited.<\/p>\n

Further, it was urged that since there were only two financial bids, out of which one bidder was the Consortium led by Mr Ajay Singh, effectively the bidding process was a mere sham only to fulfil the technical requirement of there being more than one bidder. It was obvious that the whole process was collusive and tailor-made to facilitate Respondent 6 acquiring Air India.<\/p>\n

Adding to the above submissions, the petitioner repeatedly stated that he was aggrieved by the methodology of valuation, which according to him was arbitrary, corrupt, illegal and against the public interest.<\/p>\n

Hence, the petitioner sought a direction for quashing the Air India disinvestment process as also directing CBI to investigate the role and functioning of the official respondents, involved in the disinvestment process.<\/p>\n

Mr Harish Salve, Senior Counsel on behalf of respondent 6 urged that the present petition was a challenge to a policy decision taken almost five years ago and was highly belated.<\/p>\n

Decision<\/span><\/h4>\n

High Court found no reason to entertain the present Public Interest litigation for the following facts and reasons:<\/p>\n