The Oil Ministry will not conduct any inquiry against oil regulator PNGRB Member BS Negi, who was restrained by the Supreme Court from attending the regulator's board meetings, in the absence of "specific material" substantiating allegations of misuse of office.
The Oil Ministry's Central Vigilance Officer (CVO) has opined that since there was no specific material to substantiate allegations of Negi misusing his office for pecuniary gains, there was no ground to conduct an inquiry, a June 20 letter from the ministry to the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) Chairman said.
Quoting the CVO, the letter said, "Since this ministry has not received any specific material, which can substantiate the allegations, there are no reasonable grounds for conducting an inquiry by a judge, as provided in Section 7 of PNGRB Act. Hence, it has decided that there was no need for proceeding further in the matter."
It was alleged that Negi's son was running a consultancy company, NEGI (later changed to Resonance Energy Pvt Ltd), that provides consultancy services to entities applying to the the PNGRB for licences to lay gas pipelines and city gas networks.
Further, it was alleged that the firm 'NEGI' and two other companies had in 2008 organised an 'Euro-Asia Conference-cum-Exhibition' for city gas distribution, which was sponsored by oil and gas companies that fall under the regulatory purview of the board.
Based on a petition filed by an NGO, Voice of India, which was represented by Prashant Bhushan, the Delhi High Court had on January 21, 2010, asked the Oil Ministry to take "an appropriate decision with regard to the allegations against Negi".
The Supreme Court, hearing a separate Special Leave Petition, on May 12 stated that Negi should not participate in any meeting of the board granting authorisation to companies to retail CNG for automobiles in cities and lay gas pipelines.
"We deem it appropriate to direct that for the present, BS Negi may not participate in the deliberations of the board meetings. We make it absolutely clear that we are not casting any aspersions on Negi," a three-judge bench, headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari, said, allowing the PNGRB's plea to grant authorisation for city gas distribution and gas pipelines.
The ministry said that "since no reference was made relating to the status of allegations against BS Negi in the SLP filed by the PNGRB or any other petition filed before the Supreme Court, this ministry had no occasion to clarify the stand before the Supreme Court."
It mentioned that the CVO of GAIL, who examined the allegations against Negi at the behest of CVC, had observed that the contact phone number of Negi and telefax number of his son's firm NEGI were the same.