Will quash Jet-Etihad deal if there are irregularities: SC

The Supreme Court today made it clear that it would quash the Jet-Etihad Airways deal if there are any irregularities in it. The apex court also issued notice to Centre on a plea for putting on record a memo sent by PMO to the Corporate Affairs Ministry in which the PMO had allegedly raised serious reservations in respect of the growth of the middle eastern carriers including Etihad.

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A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam sought response from government and Income Tax Department on a plea seeking direction to them to place the transcript of tapped telephonic conversation of former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia in which she allegedly had talked about the civil aviation sector.

The court passed the order on BJP leader Subramanian Swamy's plea seeking its direction to quash the deal on the ground that it was against public interest as there was squandering of natural resource i.e. sky and air space. At the outset, Swamy raised objection over Centre's non-filing of its response on his plea. Solicitor General Mohan Parasaran sought further four weeks' time to file the response and also raised the plea of maintainability by saying that earlier, a similar petition, questioning the Air Asia deal, was not entertained by the apex court and Swamy was rather asked to move the Delhi High Court.

"We have already issued the notice in this case after finding prima facie merits," the bench said. It assured Swamy that his plea will be heard and the deal would be set aside if it is convinced that irregularities were there.

"If we are convinced then we would certainly set it aside," the bench said giving last opportunity to the Centre to file the response and hoped that it would not seek any further adjournment in the case. Referring to the Radia tapes, Swamy, in his application, said the documents are important for the adjudication of the case and the apex court had already ordered the CBI probe in the alleged involvement of middleman in aviation sector which was revealed in conversation.