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Days after an FIR was filed against Reliance Industries and its chairman Mukesh Ambani in gas pricing case, the company's Executive Director P M S Prasad today met Delhi Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung.
The meeting follows Delhi's Anti Corruption Bureau filing the FIR against RIL, Ambani and Oil Minister M Veerappa Moily for allegedly creating an artificial shortage of gas in the country and raising prices.
Neither Prasad nor Jung were immediately available for comments.
Industry sources said Prasad met Jung in the afternoon.
After resignation of Arvind Kejriwal as Delhi Chief Minister, the anti-corruption bureau reports to Jung. Kejriwal had ordered the FIR saying he had received complaints that the decision to almost double gas prices from April was taken to benefit RIL to the tune of Rs 54,000 crore.
RIL had termed the decision to register the FIR as "shocking" and "the complaint and each of the allegations on the basis of which the Delhi Government has taken such action are completely baseless and devoid of any merit or substance whatsoever."
Yesterday, Finance Minister P Chidambaram termed the filing of the FIR as "laughable".
"The Petroleum Ministry has imposed a huge penalty on RIL. The Petroleum Ministry has required them to furnish a bank guarantee for the undelivered quantity of gas pending the
issue of price rise," he had told PTI in an interview.
The government has imposed about USD 1.8 billion penalty on RIL for natural gas output from its main fields in Krishna Godavari basin KG-D6 block falling short of the targets during the last three years.
On top of this, the company has been asked to give bank guarantees equal to the incremental price it will get from April 1. This bank guarantee will be encashed if it is proved that RIL's reasoning of water and sand ingress coupled with sudden drop in reservoir pressure leading to KG-D6 output drop, is proved wrong.
Chidambaram said the government will not go back on its decision to raise gas prices for both public sector and private producers from April 1.
The new rates, which are likely to be at USD 8-8.4 against the current price of USD 4.2 per million British thermal unit, are based on the recommendations of a committee that was appointed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at the request of Moily's predecessor, S Jaipal Reddy.
Moily himself had termed the lodging of the FIR as unconstitutional and against the principles of federalism.
