The Delhi High Court on Thursday dismissed a plea by Tata Group-owned Indian Hotels Company Ltd, which challenged an earlier verdict allowing the auction of the Taj Mahal Hotel it runs in the Capital's Mansingh Road, ANI reported. The company said it will move the Supreme Court against the high court ruling.
Recently, Cyrus Mistry, the ousted chairman of Tata Sons, had sent a letter to the company's board of directors saying that Indian Hotels had written down the net worth of the property because of poor acquisition strategies.
A bench of justices Pradeep Nandrajog and Pratibha Rani dismissed the petition filed against a court order passed on September 5. Justice V Kameshwar Rao had said that Indian Hotels did not have the right to automatically extend its licence to run the hotel in question. The court had ruled in favour of the New Delhi Municipal Council and granted it permission to auction the property.
Indian Hotels had entered into an agreement, as the licensee, with the NDMC to construct the five-star hotel in December 1976. The original agreement expired in 2011, but the Tata group subsidiary has been running the hotel on extensions. The company had told the court that the deal was later modified into a joint venture, but the court had rejected the claim.
In a separate development, the Federation of Indian Airlines on Thursday approached the Supreme Court against the aviation permit granted to the Tata-AirAsia venture, alleging fraud. The apex industry body said the agreement violated rules put out down by the Directorate General of Civil Aviation as well as India's foreign direct investment policy. In its plea, the FIA said the matter was pending before the Delhi High Court and sought the apex court's directive in connection with the case.
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