NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has quashed the pleas given by the State Government and Thiruvananthapuram Airport Authority Employees Union against handing the management of the Thiruvananthapuram International Airport to Adani Group.

The SC bench comprising Justices, UU Lalith, and Bela M Trivedi, rejected the pleas. Senior lawyer, CU Singh, and standing counsel CK Sasi appeared for the state government. Adv. Kuriakose Varghese, Shyam Mohan, and Ranjith Marar appeared for the Employees Union.

Kerala High Court had earlier, rejected the plea by the state government, submitted in October 2020, against the handing over of the management of the airport to Adani Group.

The state government had appealed to the Supreme Court that same year against the HC decision. However, the SC too quashed the plea against Adani Group. With this, the state government has lost face in the legal proceedings that began soon after Adani Group won the bid to run Thiruvananthapuram International Airport.

While rejecting the plea, the bench said that as the handover was done last year, there is no need to intervene in this matter. The court also pointed out that the Kerala government took part in the auction to transfer the management of the airport.

Meanwhile, the court said it is not passing a judgment about the ownership of the airport’s land.

Adv. CU Singh said that the handing over of management of the airport took place while the ownership of the land where the airport stands is the property of the Kerala government.

However, the central government argued that all proceedings in the handover were done as per law.