New Delhi: An activist lawyer and a former bureaucrat Wednesday moved the Delhi High Court seeking its intervention in ONGC's petition accusing Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) of exploiting gas worth Rs 30,000 crore from the PSU's natural gas block in Krishna-Godavri basin.
Justice Manmohan issued notice to the Centre, RIL and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) and sought their responses on the intervention application of former Secretary to the Government of India E A S Sarma and advocate Kamini Jaiswal who have alleged that the PSU is being pressured to withdraw its writ petition.
They have claimed that apart from the earlier government's alleged pressure on ONGC to withdraw its plea, the present regime has also supported RIL and admonished the PSU for filing the petition.
"The government has sought dismissal of the petition by calling it frivolous," the application, filed through advocates Prashant Bhushan and Pranav Sachdeva, has said.
The application has also stated that ONGC's petition raises "serious issues..."
The two applicants have stated that "non-resolution of the issues raised in ONGC's petition would have a serious adverse impact on public interest.
On May 29, ONGC submitted before the court that it has suffered loss of gas worth Rs 30,000 crore as a result of RIL exploiting gas from its block in Krishna-Godavri basin.
In its plea, ONGC contended that RIL has drawn out 18 billion cubic meters of natural gas from the combined reserves of both companies since 2009.
ONGC has alleged that the current situation arose due to lack of vigilance on the part of Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) and the central government and their failure to take precautionary measures resulted in loss of several thousands of crores of rupees to it.
It said that DGH should have insisted upon joint development of the blocks.
ONGC has claimed that of the said total quantity of gas exploited by RIL from its block adjoining that of the PSU, more than half belongs to it.
RIL has said that the blocks were given to it in 2006 and it made the same operational.
While it has admitted that it is drawing gas from its block, it said that the independent expert panel will have to determine if the well of the company is connected with that of ONGC.
