Judge recuses himself from RIL gas case on personal grounds

Thu, Nov 5 01:50 AM

In a dramatic development in Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) versus Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL), Justice RV Raveendran on Wednesday withdrew himself from the Bench, hearing the gas dispute between the Ambani brothers. The three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, Justice RV Raveendran and Justice P Sathasivam were hearing the Ambani gas dispute in the Supreme Court since October 20.

As the session began, Justice Raveendran disclosed that his daughter has been associated with a law firm, AZB and Partners, since September this year and the firm is advising RIL in another project so he would not like to hear the matter. "My conscience is clear and I feel that justice should not only be done but seen to be done. That is the tradition of this court," he added.

Stating that he found out about AZB and Partner's professional association with RIL only on Tuesday evening, Justice Raveendran expressed regret that six days of valuable time of the court have been wasted. "Till now, only RIL was advancing the arguments and RNRL has not started. So it is not late to dissociate myself from hearing the matter," he added.

RIL, in a press statement released on Wednesday evening, said neither RIL nor its' lawyers were aware that the judge's daughter is associated with its' advisor firm, AZB and Partners. "AZB and Partners who have been advising us from time to time should have informed us of this fact and RIL regrets that six working days of the court were lost," RIL said.

Incidentally, Justice Raveendran had offered to recuse himself from the case when hearings began. At the time, he had disclosed that he holds equal number of shares in both RIL and RNRL. Senior counsels Harish Salve and Ram Jethmalani appearing for RIL and RNRL respectively had no objections to that and requested him to stay on the Bench.

This time too, both the counsels persuaded Justice Raveendran to continue hearing the matter but he declined to do so considering the broad implications of the high profile case. Both the advocates then told the Chief Justice (CJI) to continue hearing the matter along with Justice Sathasivam.

RNRL's counsel Ram Jethmalani wasn't convinced. "I have a strong conviction that RIL had been upset with the newspapers reporting that Justice Raveendran was asking some inconvenient questions not to the liking of RIL, that is when they decided to find a reason for making the judge recuse himself. RIL was aware that a lawyer from the same firm Azb & Partners was not only attending the hearings but was also advising RIL in some matters. It was their plain duty to disclose this before the hearing," he said, pointing out that the counsel for RIL and the government made no effort to persuade the judge to change his mind.

The CJI, considering the importance of the matter, said it should be heard by a three judge Bench and decided that a new Bench would be constituted to hear the matter afresh from Thursday. Justice B Sudershan Reddy has replaced Justice Raveendran as the third judge of the Bench.

At the last hearing on Thursday, Justice Raveendran had asked RIL to explain as to how it would be in public interest to sell the gas at the price of $4.20 per million british thermal unit (mmBtu).

"For making it from $2.34 to $4.20 per mmBtu (RIL) are only the beneficiary and not the public. RIL is gaining and not the public. Is it in the public interest?" he had observed when RIL made submissions on the marketing rights of the gas from KG-Basin.

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