Delhi High Court allows to hear govt's plea against Reliance on Kaveri-Godavari D6 gas block case

A division bench comprising Justices Manmohan and Mini Pushkarna has agreed to consider the government's plea against RIL, alleging gas misappropriation in the Bay of Bengal. The case is expected to be scheduled for Feb. 12, BQ Prime reported.

In May, the Delhi High Court dismissed the government's challenge to an arbitration tribunal's ruling that favored RIL regarding the sale of gas extracted from an Oil and Natural Gas Corp. block. The international arbitral tribunal had determined that Reliance was

The international arbitral tribunal had ruled that Reliance was permitted to sell gas from deposits next to its contract area in the Krishna-Godavari basin on the east coast, according to the report.

Justice Anup Jairam Bhambhani, presiding over a single-judge bench, saw no grounds to dispute the tribunal's verdict and dismissed the appeal. Reliance, in collaboration with the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Niko Ltd., and BP PLC, operated under a product-sharing contract for natural gas extraction.

Their allocated block was adjacent to ONGC's. In 2011, ONGC alerted the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons about a potential gas migration issue.

In 2015, the ministry established a single-member committee to evaluate the findings and propose subsequent steps.

This committee contended that Reliance had gained an unjust advantage from the ONGC block. It's worth noting that no expert was involved in crafting this report, and Reliance opted not to engage in the committee's proceedings.

Following this report, the ministry sought $1.72 billion from Reliance, citing gas diversion from the block—$1.55 billion for purported fraud and over $174 million for what was deemed "unjust enrichment."