RNRL to Petro min: become party to case

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources Ltd has asked the petroleum ministry to become a party in the ongoing litigation between Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and state-owned NTPC Ltd in the Bombay High Court.

Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources Ltd has asked the petroleum ministry to become a party in the ongoing litigation between Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and state-owned NTPC Ltd in the Bombay High Court.

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RNRL Group President A N Sethuraman has written to the petroleum secretary, R S Pandey, in this connection.

“We would request you, in the interest of having a uniform approach, to consider becoming a party in the RIL-NTPC litigation,” he has said in the letter. “It (RIL-NTPC litigation) involves a government-owned PSU and concerns an exorbitant burden of an additional Rs 30,000 crore that power consumers in the country may be called upon to bear, solely for the benefit of a private monopoly gas producer, RIL.”

RNRL said the legal views taken by NTPC, which said RIL was relying on the petroleum ministry's affidavits in the RIL-RNRL case in the Bombay High Court and Supreme Court to strengthen its own ongoing case against NTPC and dishonor its binding gas supply agreement with NTPC.

“Yet, the petroleum ministry, it would appear, is not considering intervening in the court case between RIL and NTPC,” it said.