New Delhi: Justice A.P. Shah committee on Wednesday agreed with the allegations that gas had migrated from Krishna Godavari fields of ONGC to adjoining KG-D6 block of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries and said in its report on Wednesday that government is entitled to claim restitution from RIL for the “unjust benefit it received and unfairly retained.” The report said that it is government and not ONGC, which is entitled to “claim restitution from RIL for the unjust benefit it received and unfairly retained.”
However, it asked the government to investigate the magnitude of recovery from Reliance. The report agreed with DeGolyer and MacNaughton report that reservoirs in ONGC’s Krishna Godavari basin KG-DWN-98/2 and the Godavari-PML are connected with Dhirubhai-1 and 3 field located in the KG-DWN-98/3 Block.
“The D&M report establishes connectivity and quantifies the gas that has migrated and is likely to migrate within the time period covered by the base case and case 1 scenarios. In the circumstances, and with the information available at hand, it is difficult for the committee to believe that the manner in which the D&M report was arrived at was questionable,” the report said.
“The committee notes that the question of quantification of unfair enrichment is to be decided by the government of India, with the principle that whatever benefit RIL received in terms of the migrated gas is liable to be returned,” it said.
