Amazon-Future case: Bulky documents irk SC

One-liner: Irked over a truckload of bulky documents filed by parties in a batch of petitions arising out of the Amazon-Future Retail case, the Supreme Court on Tuesday asked whether the purpose was just to drag on or harass the judges and sought a common small compilation of documents.

Bench direction: A bench asked the counsel for parties to file a small volume of documents so that the matter can be disposed of, and fixed the case for hearing on Dec 8.

• It is completely unnecessary, senior advocate Harish Salve, appearing for the Future group, said and suggested that both sides can discuss and file a common document along with short written notes
• Meanwhile, the bench allowed the IDBI trusteeship, which had moved the apex court seeking to de-freeze Future Retail shares pledged to it, withdraw its plea and said that it will go to the Delhi High Court with its plea

Shares attached: The pledged shares have been attached at the orders of the high court, senior advocate N K Kaul said, adding that since the apex court had barred the high court from proceeding with the case, the IDBI trusteeship has failed to access its shares.

Judge recuses herself: On Nov 11, the top court judge Justice Hima Kohli had offered to recuse herself from hearing the pleas, saying she and her family members have shares in Reliance Industries Ltd group firms, one of the interested parties to the litigation.

Fresh petition: The top court was hearing a fresh petition of Future Group against the Delhi HC's recent order declining its plea for stay on an arbitration tribunal decision refusing to interfere with the Singapore International Arbitration Centre's (SIAC) Emergency Award (EA) which restrained it from going ahead with the ₹24,731Cr merger deal..

• The bench was also hearing a counter plea by Amazon, seeking to restrain the regulators from approving the merger deal
• Amazon had dragged Future Group to arbitration at SIAC in October last year, arguing that FRL had violated their contract by entering into the deal with rival Reliance