The Government has stopped issuing penalties on Reliance Industries and its partner BP plc for natural gas production from eastern offshore KG-D6 fields not matching the targets after the matter went into arbitration, according to an RTI reply by the DGH and sources.
While a challenge by Reliance-BP to the imposition of penalties in the form of disallowance of recovery of a part of the cost of incurred on the fields led to the Government stopping issuing notices after 2016, a similar arbitration proceeding had not prevented it from selling shares, seizing dividends and confiscating tax refunds — totalling about $1 billion, to recover retrospective tax dues from Cairn Energy Plc of UK.
