Thaindian News

New Delhi, Sep 16 (IANS) The Anil Ambani group Wednesday asked the Supreme Court to make the state-run power utility NTPC a party to its dispute with the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries over natural gas supplies from the Krishna-Godavari basin.
The petition said both NTPC and Reliance Natural Resources of the Anil Ambani group have common issues in their disputes with Reliance Industries over supplies of natural gas at $2.34 per unit for 17 years.

The move comes after Reliance Natural Resources had filed an application Monday seeking to join another related dispute - the one between NTPC and Reliance Industries.

The application said Reliance Industries was making one pretext or the other to wriggle out of its commitment to both NTPC and Reliance Natural Resources in the supply of natural gas.

“In the circumstances, the applicant (Reliance Natural Resources) most respectfully prays that this honourable court may be pleased to direct NTPC to be impleaded as party respondent in the special leave petition,” the application said.

The application to the apex court came after Reliance Natural Resources also accused the Mukesh Ambani-led company of charging an “illegal and unauthorised” marketing margin on sale of gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin.

The company said this would lead to a loss of Rs.10,000 crore to the government.

“The so-called marketing margin is nothing but a device illegally adopted by Reliance Industries to charge a higher sale price, without even paying the lawful share of such revenues to the government.”