The Indian government has petitioned against Cairn Energy in the Dutch Court of Appeal to set aside the Cairn Arbitration Award, Cairn Energy said on Tuesday. The firm received the notice of the appeal.

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On March 24, CNBC-TV18 had reported that India has filed an appeal against the arbitration award on the grounds of the sovereign right to tax.

The case had begun in 2011 when the IT department barred Cairn India to sell a stake of 9.8 percent. This was after the firm had sold the majority stake to mining billionaire Anil Agarwal. Not only had the IT department stopped it, but the government had frozen the payment of dividends by Cairn India to Cairn Energy.

The IT department had also slapped a Rs 10,247-crore tax assessment using legislation that gave it powers to levy tax retrospectively. Following this, a UK court had unanimously ruled that India violated its obligations under UK-India Bilateral Investment Treaty.

The tribunal had also ordered India to pay $1.2 billion in damages, with interest and costs to compensate Cairn for the shares sold off by the tax department, with dividends and tax refunds. Refusing to honour the ruling, India had appealed against the award.

The firm has now moved to courts in the US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, France, and three other countries to register the ruling of the tribunal court. Since the government is challenging the arbitration award, instead of honouring it, Cairn is looking to seize overseas Indian assets, a PTI report said.

First Published:Mar 30, 2021 11:41 AM IST