High & mighty of India Inc faced music in 2014 in Delhi HC

Courts says telecom majors amenable CAG audit; RIL struggles with FIR on gas pricing by 49-day-old AAP regime

The year gone by saw the high and mighty of the corporate world face the music in the Delhi High Court which held that telecom majors are amenable to CAG audit, even as Mukesh Ambani's RIL struggled hard to get rid of an FIR lodged on gas pricing by the 49-day-old AAP regime.

Wresting power on the promise of cheap electricity and water, the Arvind Kejriwal government cracked the whip by lodging the FIR on a complaint against Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and then ministers in UPA II at the Centre accusing them of colluding to raise price of the gas supplied from its KG-D6 well.

Stung by AAP's action few days before it relinquished power, RIL moved the high court for quashing the FIR and got support from the then UPA regime and the new NDA government toed the same line by questioning the power of the state machinery in lodging the FIR. The issue remains subjudice.

However, in a blow to the telecom sector, the high court dismissed their contentions by holding that the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) can audit them, forcing them to move the Supreme Court where also they returned empty hand.

Power distribution companies also struggled to keep away from them the sword of CAG audit, which was ordered by Arvind Kejriwal-led government in city and the high court refusing to stay it.

RIL was also dragged to the high court by state-owned PSU ONGC accusing it of exploiting gas worth Rs 30,000 crore from the PSU's natural gas block in the KG6 basin.

The matter took a new twist when an activist and a lawyer jointly moved an intervention application calling for a thorough court-monitored probe and claiming the Centre has allegedly pressured the PSU to withdraw its petition which is pending.