The Future group has moved an application in the Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) seeking its approval to hold a meeting of its shareholders on the proposed deal with Reliance Retail.

At a hearing on Monday, the NCLT reserved the order on the application even as it asked the Future group and Amazon to file their submissions.

The development comes after a division bench of the Delhi high court stayed the operation, implementation and execution of a February 2 ad interim status quo order given by a single judge bench till the next date of its hearing.

Amazon had challenged the order of the division bench in the Supreme Court. In its special leave petition, which is expected to come up for hearing on Monday, Amazon has said the division bench order had been passed “hastily” and was “unsustainable in law” since it did not even wait for the verdict of an order from the single judge of the same court that was reserved on February 2.

The Future group has filed the application with the NCLT under Section 230-232 of the Companies Act, 2013 seeking its approval to hold the shareholders meet for a scheme of amalgamation. The Reliance group has also reportedly filed an application seeking the NCLT’s green signal to the deal. Amazon has objected to the NCLT application and said cases were pending in the Delhi high court and the Supreme Court.

Last month, Amazon had approached the Delhi high court seeking the enforcement of an interim order of the Emergency Arbitrator (EA) at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) that restrained Future Retail from going ahead with the deal with Reliance.

The US e-commerce giant had earlier dragged Future Group to arbitration at the SIAC arguing the latter had violated their contract by entering into a deal with rival Reliance. In August 2020, the Future group had agreed to sell its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units to Reliance Retail for Rs 24,713 crore.

Amazon Pantry

Amazon will merge two sections catering to the daily needs of customers in its online ordering platform to provide a seamless offering to customers at a faster clip, intensifying battle with other online grocers such as Bigbasket and Grofers.

The Pantry section, catering to dry grocery items and a range of daily need products within the FMCG basket, will be rolled into the Fresh platform, which offers fruits, vegetables, meat and other perishable food items, in four cities to begin with. It will be subsequently rolled out in all the cities where Amazon operates the Fresh segment, including Calcutta.

Customers of Bangalore, Delhi, Ahmedabad and Mysore will experience the new merged platform which promises delivery in two hours.

Under the Fresh platform, customers can opt for 2-hour delivery or choose a convenient 2-hour slots from 6AM to midnight. All customers get free scheduled 2-hour delivery on all orders over Rs 600. Orders below this threshold attract a delivery fee of Rs 29, which compares favourably with Rs 40 of Bigbasket.