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Informist, Wednesday, Jul. 1, 2026

 

NEW DELHI – The Delhi High Court Wednesday allowed Vedanta to enforce $64 million arbitral awards for the year 2004 and 2016 against the government out of a contract relating to Ravva Oil Field in Krishna Godavari Basin. The high court rejected the objections raised by the government for the enforcement of the arbitral awards and directed for release of the bank guarantees maintained by Vedanta in 2018.

 

The high court said that the government has reiterated the same objections pertaining to jurisdiction it raised before the arbitral tribunal and the latter had dealt with each one of them, which were plausible and reasonable views and do not shock the conscience of the court. As already observed above, the enforcing court under Section 48 of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996, has very limited grounds on which it can refuse to enforce a foreign award, said the court.

 

If the government's contention is accepted that the arbitral awards were in violation of public policy and against the people of India, then no justifiable reason has been given by the Centre for extending the production sharing contract with Vedanta for another period of 10 years, said the court. The government cannot blow hot and cold at the same time, said the court.

 

The arbitral awards have withstood the judicial scrutiny before the curial courts of Malaysia and the government cannot seek the high court to decide the merits of the dispute because it disagrees with the majority of the arbitral tribunal's interpretation, said Justice Jasmeet Singh. "Hence, I find no merit in the contention raised by the respondent, which would persuade me to delve into the merits of the matter by interpreting the terms of the PSC (production sharing contract). The view and interpretation by the majority AT (arbitral tribunal) are both reasonable and plausible," said Justice Singh.

 

The case has its genesis from the government entering into a production sharing contract with Videocon Petroleum Ltd., Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd., and Command Petroleum (India) Pty. Ltd., which changed its name and merged into Vedanta. The objective behind executing the contract was to invite private equities to invest in development of Ravva Oil Field in Krishna Godavari Basin.

 

Since disputes arose between the parties pertaining to interpretation of the terms of the production sharing contract, the case went to arbitration and the venue of arbitration was Malaysia. In 2004 and 2016, a partial arbitral award and a final arbitral award were passed, which were upheld by the Malaysian Federal Court in 2019. Thereafter, Vedanta moved the high court seeking enforcement of both the arbitral awards.

 

Wednesday, the shares of Vedanta ended 1.9% lower at INR 275.55 on the National Stock Exchange.  End

 

US$1 = INR 95.25

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Akul Nishant Akhoury

 

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