High Court notice to AP, RIL, CBI

High Court  notice to AP, RIL, CBI
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Highlights

High Court notice to AP, RIL, CBI, T Sunil Chowdary, Reliance Industries, Jana Palana Party. The petitioner had earlier filed another writ petition on removal of flexi banners.

  • Explanation also sought from DG (Hydrocarbons)
  • Palem Srikant Reddy of Jana Palana Party moves it
  • He alleges hoarding of gas by Reliance Industries
  • Seeks allocation of RIL gas to power units in Andhra Pradesh
  • Despite abundant gas, AP units are denied allocations
  • Alleges Cong, TDP, YSRCP and BJP benefiting from this

Hyderabad: A division Bench of the AP High Court comprising Justice G Rohini and Justice T Sunil Chowdary on Monday ordered notice to the CBI, AP government, Reliance Industries and the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons on the issue of gas supplies from D-6 in KG-Basin on a public interest plea on allocation of gas from the D-6 block Krishna Godavari (KG) basin. Palem Srikant Reddy of Jana Palana Party filed the plea, questioning the inaction of the Central and the State governments in allocating gas explored from the KG basin by the Reliance Group to the State, as being illegal, arbitrary and unconstitutional. He sought a direction to the government that it takes appropriate steps for allocation of said gas.

Alleging that the RIL has been hoarding the natural gas produced out of KG-Basin, the petitioner sought the court to order CBI probe into the whole issue and also requested the court to direct the Government to take appropriate steps to see that Andhra Pradesh gets gas allocation as the oil and gas field are located near the State.

The petitioner pointed out that the rights to explore gas was given to RIL during the TDP regime in 2000, and about 7,645 sq km was given to the company to explore gas in about 18 wells. It was contended that though huge gas was available, there was still shortage of gas supply to gas-based thermal power stations and hence the State was left gasping for power. The petitioner also impleaded four principal parties: Congress, YSRCP, TDP and BJP, and said they could be possible beneficiaries of huge sums from RIL in the forthcoming general elections, and thus the activity must be monitored. The Bench, however, ordered notices only to the government and RIL.

The petitioner had earlier filed another writ petition on removal of flexi banners. Both PIL cases were listed before another Bench, but with Justice PV Sanjay Kumar recusing himself from the matters, they were listed before different benches.

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