Tough tiff

New Delhi, July 18: The Reliance gas tussle today took a new turn with the government moving the Supreme Court, seeking the cancellation of the Ambani family pact that governed the gas supply from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

A special leave petition filed by the petroleum ministry wanted the court to declare the Ambani family agreement “null and void” as it treated national resources as personal property, when the government was the sole owner of the gas and RIL was only a contractor.

In a simultaneous development, Anil Ambani’s RNRL, in an affidavit, today accused the petroleum ministry of “blatantly and openly” supporting Mukesh Ambani-led RIL’s “unlawful design” to wriggle out of its obligation to supply gas.

The special leave petition (SLP) comes a day after the government filed an affidavit in the Supreme Court yesterday, with the request to become a party to the gas dispute between the warring Ambani brothers.

The government approached the apex court after Reliance Industries filed an affidavit in which it said it could not supply gas from the D-6 well in the Krishna-Godavari basin to Reliance Natural Resources without the approval of the government.

Last month, Bombay High court had upheld RNRL’s right to 28 million cubic metres of gas a day from the D-6 field at a concessional price of $2.34 per million British thermal units (mBtu). The government had fixed the price of gas at $4.20 per mBtu.

The apex court will start hearing on one of the most rivetting corporate battles on Monday. The battle has raged for close to three years.

The petroleum ministry filed the special leave petition today to ensure that it was able to raise issues that were not touched by Bombay High Court if the apex court declined to allow the government as an intervener in the cross-appeals filed by the Ambani brothers.

RIL had named the government as an intervener in its petition challenging the earlier high court order.

Asking the Supreme Court to stay the Bombay High Court order on gas supply on the basis of a family agreement, which has not been made public, the government said in the SLP that the family pact between the Ambanis was “blatantly illegal” and in disregard to the provision of the production sharing contract.

“Knowing fully well that the gas does not belong to them and that... (they) are bound by the terms of the production sharing contract, the respondents (RIL and RNRL) have appropriated through a pact, in a surreptitious and unauthorised manner, the entire gas, treating the same as their personal and family property,” the government plea said.

Before the government filed its leave petition, RNRL filed its second affidavit since Tuesday, seeking to strike off the affidavit filed by the petroleum ministry yesterday.

Sources said RNRL was planning to file an affidavit questioning the government's locus standi in challenging the pact reached between the Ambani brothers.

In its rejoinder to the government affidavit — which said it had no knowledge of the family agreement and that the pact signed by the two Ambani groups was in contravention of the production sharing contract — RNRL said the ministry had absolutely no role to play in the demerger and reorganisation of businesses of RIL.

“It is submitted that the scheme of demerger was sanctioned by Bombay High Court on December 9, 2005 after the approval of creditors and lakhs of shareholders. The ministry did not object to the scheme,” Reliance Natural Resources said.