Anushka Mansharamani
Vodafone has told the Delhi High Court that it would not take the proceedings ahead against the India-UK BIPA until the Dutch arbitration award is set aside.
Vodafone in 2017 had initiated two international arbitration proceedings simultaneously. One was against the India-Netherlands Bilateral Investment Protection Agreement (BIPA), and the second one was India-UK BIPA.
The Centre had earlier contended before a single bench of the Delhi High Court stating that the two international proceedings initiated by Vodafone were abusive of the process of law.
The single judge had dismissed the plea and allowed Vodafone to initiate two simultaneous international proceedings.
He stated that the Centre was a party to the BIPA and mentioned the treaty between the two governments (India and the United Kingdom).
The Centre, aggrieved by the order passed by the single-judge bench, challenged the decision of permitting two international proceedings to be initiated by the company under the India-Netherlands and India-UK BIPA.
Vodafone, on 7th September 2020, asked for Rs 22,100 crore in taxes and on 26th September won the case in the Arbitration Court in Hague against the Netherlands.
On 7th October 2020, Senior Advocate Harish Salve, representing Vodafone, stated that Vodafone should not proceed with the second arbitration case between India – UK BIPA until the award is published under the India-Netherland BIPA.
The Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Chetan Sharma had agreed to this, and the court listed the matter to be heard on 8th December.
On 8th December 2020, Vodafone told the Delhi High Court that it would not take the case further until the Dutch arbitration award is set aside.
However, the Indian government is not sure whether it would challenge the order passed by the Hague – based Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA) concerning the arbitration award given to Vodafone.
Advocate Anuradha Dutt, representing Vodafone, stated that the Centre would file an appeal, and the Ministry of Law and Justice would be in favour of this appeal.
The Inter-Ministerial Group is finally yet to take a final call on whether it would challenge the award given to Vodafone by the PCA.
Finally, Vodafone declared that it would not initiate proceedings against the India-UK BIPA yet.