In a more serious challenge to the allocation of KG Gas Basin block to the partnership of Reliance Industries and NIKO, the Supreme Court on Monday issued notice on a PIl that demanded scrapping of the allocation.
The Court issued notice even to CBI as the petition filed by a group of eminent citizens and NGO Common Cause sought an independent probe into the alleged irregularities by the joint venture in “deliberate” under-production of gas and “gold plating” of expenditure.
The bench of Chief Justice P Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi, which is seized of the issue in another PIl filed by CPI MP Gurudas Dasgupta, issued notice on the fresh petition and posted both matters to be taken up after four weeks.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan who represented the petitioner pointed out that the petition by Dasgupta was on the limited issue of gas pricing. The new petition raised an array of issues, chief among which were scrapping of the allocation of gas block to Reliance-NIKO and an independent enquiry by CBI or SIT into the persistent failure in adhering to the production sharing contract, deliberate underproduction, gold plating of expenditure and the malafide conduct in forcing hike in gas price.
The bench issued notice to Director General Hydrocarbons and CBI as rest of the parties were already represented in the other matter. The Government had recently decided to increase the price of natural gas from USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit (mbtu) to USD 8.4 mbtu from April 1, 2014.