The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside its own 2021 judgment and ruled that Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Infrastructure would not be entitled to “undeserved windfall” in the form of an arbitral award of Rs 8,000 crore from government-owned DMRC (Delhi Metro Railway Corporation).

“There was no valid basis for this court to interfere under Article 136 of the Constitution. The interference by this Court has resulted in restoring a patently illegal award. This has caused a grave miscarriage of justice,” a bench of Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, Justice Sanjiv Khanna and Justice B.R. Gavai said.

“We have applied the standard of a ‘grave miscarriage of justice’ in the exceptional circumstances of this case where the process of arbitration has been perverted by the arbitral tribunal to provide an undeserved windfall to DAMEPL. The curative petitions are allowed in the above terms,” the bench said.

Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) is a consortium comprising Reliance Infrastructure Limited and Construcciones Y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles SA, Spain.

The judgment is significant as the Supreme Court chose to set aside a September 2021 judgment of the apex court ruling in favour of Reliance Infrastructure.