Dasgupta hits at RIL, Moily again

Alleges oil minister of delaying $1.8 bn penalty on RIL in a letter to PM

Firing a fresh salvo against petroleum minister M Veerappa Moily, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta has written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh asking his immediate intervention in the matter of imposing $1.8-billion penalty on Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), alleging that Moily is acting in favour of the Mukesh Ambani-led company.

Dasgupta, who has been raising voice repeatedly against the alleged functioning by Moily in favour of RIL, said despite the proposal by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) getting a nod from oil secretary and joint secretary (exploration), the minister has over-ruled it.

Moily recommended that the matter be again referred to the Solicitor General (SG) and the law ministry for clarification, before the notice for the year 2012-13 was issued.

“The reference to the law ministry is yet another attempt of the petroleum minister to delay and obfuscate issues to give undue benefit to RIL,” he said. DGH had submitted a proposal to disallow further costs of $756 million for shortfalls in production for the year 2012-13 to the petroleum ministry, bringing the cumulative disallowance to $1.8 billion.

According to Dasgupta, as the principle for disallowance of cost recovery has already been established in 2012, with the approval of the then solicitor general and law ministry.  

“The fresh notice is merely a computational exercise, to calculate the further amount to be disallowed based on further shortfalls: there is no principle involved that needs to be determined by the SG or the law ministry. Unfortunately, we are seeing a series of cases in which the petroleum minister is repeatedly overruling the senior officers of his ministry,” the letter by Dasgupta said. He added that oil secretary had ordered DGH should take action to disallow $1.8 billion of cost recovery since there was no stay in the matter. He had also accepted DGH proposal that RIL be asked to remit $114 million to the government within 30 days, as the additional government share of profit petroleum, as a result of disallowing the cost recovery. “These actions have also been blocked by the petroleum minister on the pretext of reference to law ministry,” he added.