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ArcelorMittal and Numetal will on Monday present submissions to the National Company Law Tribunal's Ahmedabad bench on their pleas to get their bids for Essar Steel reconsidered.
While the bench hasn't mentioned a date for announcing the judgment, sources close to the development said that "an operative order could be announced on Thursday.
The bench is expected to inform the parties a day before announcing the judgment. It has also asked all the petitioners to share the submissions with each other.
Spread over three days, the bench has been hearing petitions from the two companies on their pleas to reconsider their bids for Essar Steel.
The resolution professional had termed the two companies' bids ineligible, and had called for a second round of bidding.
While the bids in the second round have been received, including one from Vedanta Resources, the opening has been deferred till the NCLT rules on the pleas.
The bench has heard arguments from the two companies, lenders and the resolution professional.
Each side has made a case for its bid, and also argued against the proposal of the competitor.
While ArcelorMittal's bid was termed ineligible because of its investment in Uttam Galva, a defaulting company, Numetal's was turned down because of the presence of its minority shareholder Rewant Ruia, who belongs to the Ruia family that founded Essar Steel.
Interestingly, ArcelorMittal has expressed its support to open bids of the second round, even as the hearing goes on, something that Numetal has contended against.
Meanwhile, sources added that the minority shareholders of Uttam Galva could approach the courts this week, against the declassification of ArcelorMittal as the company's promoter.
The minority shareholders have already approached the Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT), and have written to Uttam Galva's lenders.
Monopoly situation
ArcelorMittal had earlier alleged that the acquisition of Essar Steel by the Numetal consortium will lead to a monopolistic situation in the country's western region market.
JSW Steel, which joined the Numetal consortium as an "investor," has a facility in the region.
"CCI (competition commission of India) looks at competition from a national perspective as opposed to a regional level, and at the overall crude steel manufacturing capacity and not capacities for specific products," claimed a source close to JSW Steel.
The company's annual capacity of 18 million tons at present constitutes 14 percent of India's output, the source said.
When contacted, a senior JSW Steel official declined to comment "on such baseless and unfounded allegations."
Industry watchers have noted that the CCI has refined the definition of monopoly according to the dynamics of the sector. While in some sectors, the definition is taken nationally, for others, a region-wise market situation is looked into.
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