NEW DELHI: The Delhi high court has directed Future Retail Ltd (FRL) to submit its responses in the matter of Amazon challenging prima facie observations, made in December, by a single judge that the e-commerce giant's attempt to control the Indian entity was violative of FEMA and FDI rules. 

A bench of chief justice D N Patel and justice Jyoti Singh heard the appeal on Wednesday. The matter has been listed for further hearing on 12 February.

Amazon submitted that after the single judge concluded in favour of the validity of the Emergency Award, hence the suit filed by FRL could not have been held to be maintainable.

Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail had moved the Delhi high court after an emergency arbitrator of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) restrained Future Group from taking any steps in furtherance of the transaction with Reliance Retail. In the suit, Future Retail had prayed for directions to restrain Amazon from writing to statutory authorities in an attempt to stall the Rs 24,713 crore deal.

Last year, while prima facie opining that the Emergency Award was valid, justice Mukta Gupta had refused to restrain Amazon from interfering in FRL's deal with Reliance Retail by writing to statutory authorities. However, at the same time, Gupta noted that Future Retail's suit was maintainable and its resolution approving the transaction with Reliance was also valid.