The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) has listed Walt Disney-owned Star India and Reliance Industries (RIL)-and promoted Viacom18‘s merger application for hearing and final disposal on August 1.

Legal experts say that NCLT Mumbai has ordered a final hearing on 1 August to decide whether to sanction the scheme, The Economic Times reported.

In an order sheet of the hearing held on July 11, the division bench of technical member Anu Jagmohan Singh and judicial member Kishore Vemulapalli asked the parties to serve a fresh notice of final hearing to the central/state governments, tax authorities, and regulatory bodies like the Competition Commission of India (CCI) and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

The notices must contain the statement that if no response is received within 30 days, it will be presumed that the authorities have no objections to the scheme.

Himanshu Vidhani, partner at law firm Chandhiok & Mahajan, said the market understanding is that this scheme consists of two parts: (i) the transfer of certain identified assets of Viacom’s TV to Digital18, followed by the demerger and vesting of these identified assets from Digital18 to Star.