The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal on Monday dismissed two petitions by Vedanta Limited against Adani Enterprises being selected to acquire debt-ridden company Jaiprakash Associates, The Indian Express reported.

Vedanta had not made any grounds for the National Company Law Tribunal to change its decision, said a two-member bench comprising Chairperson Ashok Bhushan and Member (Technical) Barun Mitra.

The Allahabad bench of the National Company Law Tribunal had on March 17 approved Adani Enterprises’ Rs 14,535-crore bid to acquire Jaiprakash Associates through an insolvency process, PTI reported. Vedanta had challenged this order before the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal.

Advertisement

Vedanta had questioned the metrics used in the evaluation process, arguing that its bid was Rs 3,400 crore higher than Adani Enterprises’ proposal in gross value terms and about Rs 500 crore more in terms of net present value.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, however, said that the Committee of Creditors’ decision not to approve Vedanta’s resolution plan despite the higher bid could not be called arbitrary or perverse, according to The Indian Express.

The appellate tribunal had, on March 24, refused to grant an interim stay in response to Vedanta’s petition. However, it had said that the resolution plan would be subject to the result of the appeals filed by the Anil Agarwal-led company, PTI reported.

Advertisement

The company then approached the Supreme Court, which also refused to order a stay. The court, however, said that if the monitoring committee planned to take any major policy decision, it should first seek the tribunal’s approval.

Adani Enterprises had won the approval of the Committee of Creditors for its bid to acquire Jaiprakash Associates, an engineering and construction firm, in November, according to The Indian Express.

Five major firms had taken part in the auction – Adani, Vedanta, Dalmia Cement, Jindal Power and PNC Infratech. Although Vedanta had submitted an overall bid of around Rs 16,000 crore as against Adani’s figure of Rs 14,535 crore, Adani Enterprises had offered a higher upfront component of Rs 6,000 crore.