PMO query on Anil's complaint

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has asked for comments from the petroleum ministry on Anil Ambani’s letter, wherein he accused the ministry of siding with estranged brother Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) in an ongoing gas dispute.

Anil’s company Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) and RIL are involved in a legal battle over Krishna-Godavari Basin gas.

A senior official told Business Standard the ministry is framing a reply for the PMO. In a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Anil Ambani had sought a direction to the Ministry of Petroleum “to cease from overtly and covertly attempting to intervene in our commercial dispute with RIL”.

Anil Ambani had said: “We have recently seen a spate of unfortunate public utterances with unusual frequency by various functionaries in the Petroleum Ministry to the print and electronic media in a manner not witnessed in any other part of the government, that too on a matter that is sub-judice in the Hon’ble Supreme Court.”

Ambani’s letter was written prior to the government filing a special leave petition (SLP) in the Supreme Court, though it was first reported on Monday, two days after the government challenged the Bombay High Court decision, which directed RIL to supply gas to RNRL at $2.34 per mBtu, and also sought a direction to declare as “null and void” an MoU between the two groups that provides for gas supply and sharing.