The Hindu Business Line : SC clears hurdles for Reliance Power IPO

New Delhi, Jan. 9 The Supreme Court on Wednesday cleared the hurdles for the launch of the Rs 10,000-crore mega Initial Public Offering by Reliance Power Ltd by staying the proceedings in the Gujarat High Court seeking to restrain the company from going ahead with the IPO on January 15.

A three-Judge Bench, comprising the Chief Justice, Mr K.G. Balakrishnan, Mr Justice R.V. Raveendran and Mr Justice J.M. Panchal, stayed the hearing of a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) petition filed by a Rajkot-based NGO, Grahak Suraksha Mandal in the Gujarat High Court, after hearing senior counsel Mr Harish Salve, who appeared for RPL. The Bench issued notice to the Mandal returnable in three weeks.

Mr Salve, who mentioned the petition before the Bench, alleged that the PIL was motivated and filed to cause undue harassment to RPL. He said that PIL was now being used as a surrogate weapon to fight corporate war. He said that the NGO had filed the petition before the Gujarat High Court after the Securities and Exchange Board of India had cleared the IPO. In the appeal, the Securities Appellate Tribunal did not stay SEBI’s order.

He contended that the Gujarat High Court was to take up the PIL for hearing today and if the apex court did not interfere then similar petitions would be filed to blackmail the company. He said that the IPO could not be reversed as it would affect the capital and stock markets. “We are into an international project and the world is looking at us. The project would go if the IPO was stopped and foreign institutional investors would not come,” he said.

Mr Salve submitted that according to the information received from various sources, several other PILs were to be filed in some other High Courts to obstruct the IPO of the company. This would not only be against public interest but also against the interest of the investors. While seeking stay of all further proceedings in the Gujarat High Court, RPL sought a direction to transfer all the pending litigations to the Bombay High Court since the registered office of the company was situated in Mumbai.