Thursday Titbits

On this Thursday few of the interesting  happenings in the country:

1. Yesterday Supreme Court (SC) held three Reliance Cos (Anil Ambani Group) guilty of contempt of court for going back on undertaking  to pay Ericsson (Sweedish telecom Co.) Rs 550 Cr and told if Reliance fails too pay balance of Rs 453 Cr by March 20, 2019, then it will mean that group Chairman Anil ambani will be jailed for 3 months.. The SC also castigated Anil Ambani for showing casual attitude to the highest court of the country. SC also fined the 3 companies, Reliance Communications Ltd, Reliance Telecom Ltd & Reliance Infratel Ltd,  Rs 1 Cr each. Failure to deposit this amount within 4 weeks will also amount to one month imprisonment for Anil Ambani (RCom), Satish Seth (RTL) & Chhaya Virani(RITL) for each of them. This case is pertaining to agreement between Erricson & RCom in Jan 2013, where as Erricsson will provide operation, maintenance of network service to R Com. When the Sweedish Company never received any payment for services rendered, it had moved National Company Law Tribunal (NCTL) on 17th May 2107 against RCom under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code. A year later NCLT recorded a statement on behalf of Reliance Cos that Rs 550 Cr would be paid in 120 days to Ericsson as full and final settlement of  the Rs 1500 Cr claim. Later the matter went to SC and it passed the judgement that Reliance Cos should pay Rs 550 Cr to Ericsson by 30th Sep 2018. On 23rd Oct 2018 , Ericsson informed the court about the failure by Reliance to make the payment. Court was informed that Reliance had no money to pay, as it could not sell their assets as planned. Whatever happened yesterday in SC, was the result of  all the above happenings.
2.  In  an another related case SC rejected the RCom’s allegation that Dept of Telecommunications (DoT) refusal to grant NOC led to scrapping of its Rs 25,000 Cr spectrum sale deal with Reliance Jio, which has left RCom in red. SC’s contention was that it had done utmost to help a helping  hand to effect  sale of RCom assets. ‘DTt was called in SC and asked to give its NOC for sale of spectrum. DoT pointed out NOC could be given according to certain guidelines, one of which mandated that the buyer of the spectrum (Reliance Jio) would have to undertake  that it would be responsible for erstwhile debts of seller.’ This undertaking was the main problem for Reliance Jio, because RCom had  a corporate debt of Rs46,000 Cr and insolvency proceedings. If  RCom had got the NOC, then Rs 25,000 Cr from Reliance Jio,would have been much needed oxygen for RCom, to battle insolvency proceedings. So Anil Ambani’s group  is going to have tough times ahead.
3. Yesterday a Leopard treks down from forests of Sanjay Gandhi National Park (SGNP) into Mall in Thane (near Mumbai) and from there  to basement of near by hotel, where it was sedated and captured. People out of Mumbai may not know that SGNP and adjoining Aarey area  are the biggest forest area in  Mumbai city, where wildlife is  present. These types of incidents are quite frequently happening for last few years. In last 2 years there have 5 sightings of Leopard in the urban areas adjoining forest.  The problem is no one understands that these so called urban areas which are now become resident & commercial areas  were originally forests. The area where yesterday Leopard was sighted was originally part of Yeoor forest range. So where ever wildlife has been sighted were originally areas which were part of forest, or some farm land adjoining forest. Now all the areas adjoining forest or some time even forest area has been developed for human habitation, the local habitat will have to take extra precaution during night so that wild animals do not enter their premises.

Waiting for your comments/feed backs/views.

Anil Malik

21st Feb, 2019.