Amazon on Tuesday called the February takeover of 835 of Future Retail (FRL) stores by Reliance a “sham transaction.”
“There was a mysterious switch of the leases,” Gopal Subramanium, the senior lawyer representing Amazon, told the Delhi High Court during a hearing on Tuesday.
The Delhi High Court will next hear the case on April 12 in an Amazon plea seeking enforcement of a Singapore-based arbitral tribunal’s order staying the sale of Future Group’s retail assets to Reliance Retail.
In February, Reliance Projects & Property Management terminated sub-leases of about 800 Future Group stores and took possession as Reliance alleged Future Group failed to make rental payments for more than a year amounting to Rs 4,800 crore.
On Tuesday, Subramanium called FRL’s arguments that it could not pay the rents to landlords and therefore, Reliance had to step in a make the payments an “absolute lie” and said FRL managed to pay $14 million payment on a dollar bond in February.
He said FRL never disclosed the lease transfer of 800-odd stores to Reliance that had happened way back in March 2021 neither to the courts hearing the disputes between Amazon and Future Group or to the stock exchanges as regulatory filings until the episodes came to light in February.
“I have to show you that no person is so big in this country or anywhere in the world that can show its cheek and say I will deal with the law in whatever way I like,” Subramanium argued in the court on Tuesday talking about the arbitral tribunal’s injunction that bars FRL from alienating its assets till the tribunal gives it final order.