Supreme court allows Park Hyatt Goa sale to ITC by IFCI
19 Mar 2018
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In a landmark judgement the Supreme Court on Monday upheld the sale of Park Hyatt Goa to ITC Ltd by Industrial Financial Corp of India (IFCI), under the Sarfaesi Act.
The apex court set aside a Bombay High Court order, directing the transfer of the property title to be completed within six months.
The verdict was delivered by bench comprising justices S A Bobde and L Nageshwara Rao, on an appeal by Blue Coast Hotels, the original owner of Park Hyatt Goa, against the Bombay High Court quashing of the sale of Hyatt to ITC by IFCI.
ITC was the highest bidder for the property with a bid of Rs515-crore in in February 2015.
However, a division bench of the Bombay High Court quashed the sale and directed IFCI to refund the amount, allowing Blue Coast Hotels to retain possession of the property, on grounds of possible collusion between ITC and IFCI since ITC was the sole bidder offering just Rs1,000 more than the reserved price, LiveMint reported.
Blue Coast Hotels had argued that the price quoted by ITC was not even half the property value as the actual value of the property was around Rs 1,250 crore and that there was some kind of collusion between IFCI and ITC, which the high court had acepted, the report said.
After Blue Coast Hotels defaulted on the payments, IFCI took possession of the property in June 2013 under the SARFAESI Act in June 2013 and put Park Hyatt on sale through auction.
