Petroleum minister Veerappa Moily overruled every authority inconvenient to Reliance, SC told

New Delhi Alleging collusion between the government and Reliance Industries Ltd veteran communist lawmaker Gurudas Dasgupta on Tuesday told the Supreme Court that Petroleum Minister Veerappa Moily overruled every recommendation adversely affecting the companys operations in KG basin without justifying his decisionPetroleum Minister Veerappa Moily File picMoily overruled every authority and series of people from the petroleum ministry finance ministry two parliamentary committees hydrocarbon regulator DGH CAG and experts and changed decisions that were inconvenient to RIL said counsel Colin Gonsalves appearing for the Communist parliamentarianPraising officials for not budging from technical and principled positions despite Moily coming in as petroleum minister in place of S Jaipal Reddy Dasgupta told the the bench of Justice BS Chauhan Justice J Chelameswar and Justice Kurian Joseph that even three months before the general elections Moily was committing the government with a decision that will saddle the future governments and generations with the consequences of doubling the gas prices from 42 to 84 mmbtuThe court was told this in the course of a hearing of two PILs seeking the junking of the government decision to increase the gas price from 42 mmbtu to 84 mmbtu and NGO Common Cause seeking an SITCBI probe into the increase of gas prices giving retrospective tax benefits and not insisting on the relinquishment of gas blocks in KG basin by Reliance IndustriesGonsalves told that court that the CAG had pointed to huge irregularities in the records that were shown to it by Reliance Industries and the government auditor faced a large scale obstruction in accessing the recordsHe argued that there was whole range of breaches of the production sharing contract by the companyIn the course of the hearing when the court inquired why Reliance was being paid in dollars Gonsalves told the court that it was serious matter as the entire gas produced was being used within the countryAs he touched on the way Director General Hydrocarbons DGH RN Chaubey was shunted out for not falling in line lawyer Prashant Bhushan referred to former corporate lobbyist Niira Radia tapes where the appointment of the DGH was discussedHe said it was one of the several points that the apex court had asked the CBI to investigateThere was a collusion across the board between the government and the RIL Bhushan appearing for Common Cause told the courtAs Gonsalves targeted RIL for getting the huge gain due to doubling of gas prices from April 1 Justice Chauhan asked who were the main beneficiariesCounsel Harish Salve told the court that two PSUs ONGC and OIL were the major beneficiaries of the hike in prices as they together accounted for 72 percent of the natural gas in the countryTaking the court through the journey from the exploration development and eventual production of hydrocarbons Salve said it was initially estimated that the wells in block D1 and D6 in KG basin would produce 80 mmscmd of gas but due to fall in pressure there was fall in the production of gas which today stands at 8 mmscmd million standard cubic metre per dayHe told the court that it was the government which was the actual beneficiary of the hike in gas prices as RIL would recover the cost of exploration development and production in lesser period than otherwise envisaged in the PSC and then the gains would accrue to the governmentGonsalves will continue with his arguments Wednesday