The Bombay High Court on Friday rejected a petition seeking a CBI investigation into Reliance Industries Limited and its chairman, Mukesh Ambani, over allegations of unlawful natural gas extraction from ONGC’s Krishna-Godavari basin fields.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam refused relief to the petitioner, Jitendra Maru, who had sought the registration of an FIR for offences including theft, dishonesty, misappropriation, and criminal breach of trust.
A copy of the order was not yet available.
According to Maru, RIL allegedly engaged in a “massive organised fraud” from 2004 to 2013 by drilling sideways from its contracted deep-sea wells into the adjacent Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) wells, thereby illegally extracting natural gas.
The petition claimed that ONGC discovered this alleged unauthorised extraction in 2013 and reported it to the Government of India.
Maru, in his plea, relied on an independent investigation conducted by consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton, as well as a report submitted by the retired Justice A P Shah Committee, which had concluded that RIL had tapped into ONGC`s reserves.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on Thursday reportedly conducted searches in Mumbai in connection with the Anil Ambani-Reliance Telecom SBI fraud case.
The CBI has registered a case against Reliance Telecom Ltd and its former directors, Satish Seth and Gautam B Doshi, in connection with an alleged bank fraud of Rs 114.98 crore involving the State Bank of India (SBI).
The case also names unknown public servants and others, based on a complaint filed by the SBI.
Officials said the agency has invoked charges of criminal conspiracy and cheating under the Indian Penal Code, along with provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, related to alleged misuse of official position.
According to investigators, SBI was part of a consortium of 11 banks that had sanctioned a total term loan of Rs 735 crore to Reliance Telecom. The complaint alleges that the accused caused financial losses to the bank through fraudulent actions linked to this loan.
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