Synopsis - Senior advocate Harish Salve is representing the company in SC and submitted before the court's bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana that Reliance came to an agreement with landlords where Future Retail is yet to pay 3,000 crore rupees in rentals.Counsel appearing on behalf of Future Retail Limited in the Supreme Court (SC) on Friday told the court that currently, no one is willing to do business with the company today due to the speculations over Section 7 of IBC (Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code), the IBC that may come any day.
Senior advocate Harish Salve is representing the company in SC and submitted before the court’s bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) N.V. Ramana that Reliance came to an agreement with landlords where Future Retail is yet to pay 3,000 crore rupees in rentals. He also mentioned that due to Section 7 of IBC, no company would be willing to do business with the company as it will any day now.
Amazon wanted to destroy us… they have destroyed us,
said Salve representing Future Retail in the court.
He also mentioned that for the sake of 1,400 crore rupees, Amazon destroyed Future Retail.
He stated, “They could not get Future Retail, they destroyed Future Retail.” The counsel furthermore added that all the accounts of his client (Future Retail) are currently frozen, no one wants to be in touch with it and the company’s cash flow further is further deteriorating, “after states imposed lockdown… Hanging by a thread,” Salve said.
Representing Amazon in the SC, senior advocate Gopal Subramanium, told the bench led by Chief Justice NV Ramana,
This court and other courts were repeatedly told by Future Group that there will be no transfer of any assets and the proceedings before the NCLT should be allowed to go on
He went on to add,
Your Lordships have recorded this undertaking in your order.
While talking about Future Retail’s claim over their accounts, he said that the company itself had mentioned in its annual report filing that it has enough money to pay all the rent amount and had told the same to the bank as well mentioning that they are in a situation to pay the rentals.
Coming to Future Retail’s claim of them not being in a situation to pay rentals, he stated, “It is just a smokescreen.”
Reportedly, the court was hearing Amazon’s petition that sought restraining Future Retail from alienating its retail assets until the conclusion of arbitration between Amazon and the Big Bazaar which is owned by Kishore Biyani. Earlier, last month Amazon had alleged that over 80 percent of Future Retail shops have been handed over to Reliance while Future Retail rubbished the claim.