RNRL to produce relevant portions of Reliance MoU in court

Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) has agreed to submit before the Bombay High Court relevant portions of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed by the Ambani brothers before the demerger of the Reliance Group in 2006.

RNRL counsel Ram Jethmalani told the high court that the MoU is kept ready in all respects and will be filed in the court on Wednesday. But Reliance Industries counsel Harish Salve pleaded not to make the MoU public

A division bench of the high court, comprising justices KK Tated and JN Patel is hearing the case related to the dispute over the gas supply agreement between the Mukesh Ambani-led RIL and Anil Ambani's RNRL.

Salve also submitted that the RNRL move for producing the MoU in the court would complicate matters and the row may end up in the Supreme Court. This would cause further delay a case which was not in anybody's interest.

''It is necessary to produce the document before the court. It will enable to court to pronounce the judgement,'' Jethmalani responded.

RNRL and RIL are engaged in a long-drawn dispute over the country's natural resources based on their family partition agreement, which in any case is not in the interest of the country.

RNRL is claiming rights over 28 million standard cubic meters per day of gas from RIL's D6 block in the Krishna Godavari.

The high court had earlier stayed RIL's sale of gas to anyone other than RNRL and state power utility NTPC, to which RIL had in 2004 agreed to sell 12 mmscmd gas at $2.34 per million British thermal unit (mmBtu).