Following Monday’s discussions on the ?family agreement? or the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Ambani brothers in the case between Reliance Industries (RIL) and Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) in the Bombay High Court, the court on Tuesday has asked RNRL to produce a portion of the MoU relating to the gas supply master agreement (GSMA). This is since it’s difficult to produce the entire copy of the MoU.
RNRL is ready to produce part of the MoU that deals with the proposed gas supply master agreement, its lawyer Ram Jethmalani said. The hearing has been now adjourned to September 30.
However, the RIL lawyer said that RNRL must file a separate application if it wanted to produce the MoU?not part of the record until now?and only then will RIL take a stand on it. While RNRL contends that the terms of the MoU are binding on both the parties and have a bearing on the scheme of the demerger, RIL disputes this position.
The MoU was signed by the two Ambani brothers and their mother Kokilaben prior to the split-up of the Reliance group between the two brothers. In the course of the argument on Tuesday, the division bench of Justice JN Patel and KK Tated remarked that, ?a part of the MoU may be made available to the court.? However, the court did not seek it immediately.
The court, while adjourning the hearing for September 30, asked the parties to make submissions as to whether the MoU could be admitted as an evidence at this stage, when it was not a part of the record before the earlier judge.
RIL is set to begin gas production from KG-D6 from
September, at an initial rate of 25 million standard cubic meters per day, climbing up to 40 mmscmd by March 2009 but with the court restraint, it has not been able to enter into sale contracts.
