More Stories

Informist, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025

 

--SC OKs Delhi Metro selecting Indus Towers for wireless mobile connectivity 

 

NEW DELHI – The Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld a Delhi High Court's November order validating Delhi Metro Rail Corp. Ltd.'s letter of acceptance to Indus Towers Ltd. for installing and providing in-building solutions at various metro stations on the Delhi Airport Metro Express Line.

 

The bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant rejected an appeal by Crest Digital Pvt. Ltd. questioning the manner in which the work was awarded to Indus Towers without a competitive bidding process. However, the apex court gave Crest Digital the liberty to apply afresh for grant of 12 metres of coverage area and asked Delhi Metro Rail Corp. to consider its application on suitable consideration.  

 

Delhi Metro and Crest Digital had entered into a licence agreement in 2019 to place and operate telecommunication equipment for an in-building solution to provide shared mobile coverage in the tunnel section and five underground metro stations on the Delhi Airport Metro Express line. According to Crest Digital, the original contract between Delhi Metro and Indus Towers was limited to the installation of towers and masts in outdoor areas of the airport express line. However, the scope of the agreement was extended in February to include the in-building solution, the petitioner said.

 

Crest Digital had argued that the letter of acceptance issued to Indus Towers contemplates payment of licence fees that are far lower than the fees paid by it under its existing agreement with Delhi Metro Rail Corp. The issuance of the letter to Indus Towers, in effect, renders Crest Digital's licence agreement with the corporation as defunct and causes irreparable harm to its established business model, the company said in its petition.

 

Justice Sachin Datta had, however, said in his single-judge bench judgment in September that the court could not lose sight of the fact that despite the passage of more than three years since the launch of fifth-generation telecom services in the capital, Crest Digital had neither installed nor rolled out 5G services. The upgradation of telecom infrastructure is of paramount importance and is an integral and inseparable part of infrastructure work relating to the Delhi Airport Metro Express Line, Justice Datta had said.

 

Hearing an appeal, the bench of Chief Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya and Justice Tushar Rao Gedela of the high court had said it was a case of failure on Crest Digital's part in meeting contractual obligations under the licence agreement with Delhi Metro Rail Corp. Therefore, the corporation cannot be faulted for awarding certain works as variation to the site, especially as it has to provide flawless metro services and run its own operations smoothly. A well-functioning mobile network is needed not only to provide facilities to commuters but to also run the operations of the metro, the bench added.

 

It was legally permissible for the corporation to have allocated the work by nomination to Indus Towers as special circumstances impelled the respondent to take recourse to direct nomination in place of a tendering process, the bench said. If, for any reason, mobile connectivity was disrupted, it would become difficult for the metro network to function smoothly as even ticketing would be disrupted with payments through the Unified Payments Interface being impeded, it said.

 

On the National Stock Exchange, shares of Indus Towers closed 0.3% lower at INR 408.15.  End

 

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Ashish Shirke

 

For users of real-time market data terminals, Informist news is available exclusively on the NSE Cogencis WorkStation.

 

Cogencis news is now Informist news. This follows the acquisition of Cogencis Information Services Ltd. by NSE Data & Analytics Ltd., a 100% subsidiary of the National Stock Exchange of India Ltd. As a part of the transaction, the news department of Cogencis has been sold to Informist Media Pvt. Ltd.

 

Informist Media Tel +91 (22) 6985-4000

Send comments to feedback@informistmedia.com

 

© Informist Media Pvt. Ltd. 2025. All rights reserved.