Tata arbitration award: HC to hear Bengal’s plea in April

Kolkata: Calcutta High Court’s Justice Rajasekhar Mantha will hear the state petition for injunction in the Tata Motors arbitration award case on April 9. The state had filed the petition seeking to restrain the authority from proceeding further in the matter relating to the award.The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) had earlier moved the HC challenging the arbitration award to Tata Motors on account of loss of capital in investments made in the abandoned car manufacturing plant at Singur.The court of Justice Mousumi Bhattacharya, before which applications by WBIDC for a stay on the award and an appeal challenging it were listed, had released both matters.The corporation had said in its appeal that it was not given full opportunity to present its case before the three-member tribunal. Following stiff resistance from then opposition leader Mamata Banerjee, alleging forcible acquisition of farmland, Tata Motors pulled out of the Singur ‘Nano’ plant in 2008.In a regulatory filing, the company had said last year: “In respect of arbitration proceedings between Tata Motors Limited (TML) and WBIDC, this is to inform that the aforesaid pending arbitral proceedings before a three-member Arbitral Tribunal has now been finally disposed of in favour of TML on October 30, 2023, and the company has been held to recover Rs 765.78 crore plus interest from WBIDC.”