Devas can drag centre to court

Devas Multimedia can sue Isro’s commercial arm Antrix and the Centre for annulling its spectrum deal. The company has always maintained that it has documents to prove that the said spectrum was allocated to Antrix for commercial purposes in February 2006, months after their deal was signed.

“There is a provision called promissory estoppel [a legal principle that bars a party from denying or alleging a certain fact owing to its previous conduct, allegation, or denial],” Abhishek Nath Tripathi of Delhi-based Sarthak-Advocates & Solicitors said.

If Devas can prove its claim, it can force the government to honour the deal. “If you make a promise and I act upon it and incur expenses, you are stopped from going back on your promise,” he explained.

On the other hand, if Devas is only able to prove that Antrix sent it a letter claiming that it had the approval, but not that the approval had actually been obtained, Devas can sue Antrix for misrepresentation, senior Supreme Court lawyer and corporate law expert CS Vaidyanathan said.

“For that you have to prove that 1) a wrong representation was made [by Antrix about getting approvals], 2) it was false, and 3) the party [Antrix] was duly authorised under the contract to make that representation,” he said.

The government has said it never approved allocation of S-band spectrum to Antrix, but Devas can prove that Antrix wrote to it claiming so and claim damages.

Antrix is likely to soon write to Devas claiming that since regulatory approvals are not forthcoming, it cannot go ahead with the deal. The two are also likely to explore third-party arbitration possibilities.

Devas has denied the prime minister’s statement last week that spectrum was never allocated to Antrix to sell to other parties.
“We have a written confirmation from Antrix, dated February 2006, that they have all the requisite approvals to bring the contract into force,” company CEO Ramachandra Viswanathan  told DNA.