Gas dispute: SC puts searching questions to RIL

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New Delhi: Mukesh Ambani Group firm RIL faced some searching questions from the Supreme Court for its demand to raise the gas supply price to Anil Ambani's RNRL asking how will it serve the public interest.

"Was it not in the public interest that all should be supplied gas at the rate of USD 2.34 per mmBtu (Metric Million British Thermal Unit). If Government says that the price of gas for all will be at USD 2.34 per mmBtu, will it not be in a public interest ?", the court asked RIL.

"For making it from USD 2.34 to USD 4.20 per mmBtu you (RIL) are only the beneficiary and not the public. RIL is gaining and not the public. Is it in the public interest," a Bench comprising Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and P Sathasivam observed when RIL made submissions on the marketing rights of the gas from KG Basin.

The remarks of the Bench came on the sixth day of the hearing the dispute between RIL and RNRL relating to supply of gas from KG basin for which the two brothers Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani are engaged in a bitter fight.

RNRL is seeking gas from his brother's group RIL at rates 44 per cent lower than Government-approved price.

RIL says it cannot honour the commitment made in the 2005 family agreement due to Government's pricing and gas policies. While senior advocate Harish Salve was advancing the arguments on marketing rights of the gas for RIL, the Bench said "if the gas is supplied at a lower price, the country is going to be benefitted".

"This is not an issue between the two brothers. The issue is how the government could regulate the price of gas arbitrarily and with this whose interest is being protected," the Bench asked.

Salve said a committee was set up to address the public interest relating to fixation of gas supply price. The senior advocate focussed his arguments to buttress the stand that the gas supply at the rate of USD 2.34 per mmBtu would not be in interest of the RIL.