NTPC may move SC on RIL gas row this week

State-run power producer NTPC is expected to move the Supreme Court this week to get Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) to execute a contract for gas supply, even as the Mukesh Ambani-run firm is challenging an identical prayer of Anil Ambani group firm, RNRL.

NTPC will file a Special Leave Petition before the apex court this week, a source familiar with the development said. Solicitor General Gopal Subramanium is believed to have advised the government to find a solution to the gas supply row, saying “government cannot destroy the case of NTPC or any other PSU”.

A ministerial group had approved $4.2 per mBtu as the value of gas from RIL’s KG-D6 fields, but before that the company had won a contract to supply 12 million cubic metres of gas per day to NTPC’s Kawas and Gandhar projects with a bid of $2.34 per mBtu in 2004.

The government has separately filed a petition in the Ambani brothers’ gas dispute, saying it alone had the right to approve gas price.

To buttress its argument in its legal battle with NTPC before the Bombay High Court, RIL had quoted the the ministerial group’s decision saying official nod was needed for pricing gas.

The Ambani row pertains to Anil Ambani group firm RNRL demanding gas from RIL at a price of $2.34 per mBtu — the price discovered through the NTPC bid — but here-again RIL has been maintaining that the price needs government approval.

Meanwhile, a public interest litigation was filed today before the Delhi High Court seeking a direction to the Centre to probe the contract between Mukesh Ambani-led RIL and power PSU NTPC for supply of gas.