The Supreme Court on Monday granted two weeks more time to e-commerce giant Amazon to appear and argue before the Competition Commission of India (CCI) on the matter of revoking Amazon’s deal with Future Coupons that would have a massive bearing on Reliance Retail’s takeover of Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail.

The Supreme Court declined Amazon’s plea for an adjournment of hearing by the CCI as directed by the Delhi high court on November 16 on a petition filed by traders body CAIT. Amazon had filed a special leave petition in the apex court against the high court ruling that wanted Amazon to to appear before the CCI on November 29.

A bench of Chief Justice N.V.Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice Hima Kohli passed the directions after briefly hearing senior advocates Gopal Subramanium for Amazon, Mukul Rohatgi for Future Group and Krishan Venugopal who appeared for the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT).

The court said that it would not go into the merits of the case and would rather like to give some more time, over and above the time granted by the Delhi high court, to the US firm to put forth its case before the CCI.

“We are not going into the details. We will grant two more weeks' time. You use the time and appear and argue before the Commission (CCI). You raise all your objections,” the bench said and disposed of the appeal of Amazon against the Delhi high court verdict.

A letter by the directors of Future Retail on November 7 to the CCI seeking revocation of the Amazon-Future Coupon deal prompted CAIT to first move the CCI and then the Delhi court against the deal. The retailers’ body argued that it wanted to protect around 6,000 traders who had supplied goods to the Future group amounting to Rs 10,000 crore and to recover the money from the group.

Future Coupons Pvt Limited had earlier filed a complaint against Amazon before the CCI accusing the US company of indulging in unfair trade practices and misrepresentation when the e-commerce giant had entered into the agreement with it in 2019.

The CCI in July had issued notices to Amazon.

Amazon and Future have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the e-commerce giant dragged Future Group to arbitration at Singapore International Arbitration Centre in October last year, arguing that Future Retail had violated a contract by entering into the deal with Reliance.