NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday deferred until March 30 re-hearing of a bunch of petitions challenging the government’s gas pricing policy. The petitions also allege that the gas pricing formula devised by the government sought to benefit Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) by favouring doubling of the prices of gas extracted from its KG-DG basin fields.
A bench of justices T S Thakur, Chelameswar and Kurian Joseph postponed the hearing from March 20 on a request by RIL’s counsel and senior advocate Harish N Salve.
The bench had earlier refused to reject the public interest litigations (PILs) filed by non-government organisation Common Cause, CPI leader Gurudas Dasgupta and Manohar Lal Sharma..
The Narendra Modi-led government had soon after taking over in May 2014 urged the apex court to dismiss these petitions on the ground that they had lost relevance as the government had notified a new gas pricing formula, junking the older Rangarajan formula that was under challenge.
A Supreme Court bench had earlier heard the issue for more than three weeks, but will have to re-hear it all over again as one of the judges on the bench, B S Chauhan, has retired.
