Anti Corruption Branch calls Reliance Industries Executive Director for questioning

NEW DELHI: ACB had registered a case in February 2014 on the orders of Delhi chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, alleging Mukesh Ambani, former oil ministers M Veerappa Moily and late Murli Deora, as well as former upstream regulator V K Sibal colluded to raise gas prices.

Some Reliance executives were questioned in 2015, but the investigation didn’t make much headway as the Delhi government and the Centre disagreed over the jurisdiction of ACB. A public spat broke out over who really controlled ACB between chief minister and Lieutenant Governor.

In July, Mukesh Kumar Meena, an IPS officer, took charge of ACB as special commissioner for the second time. In his previous stint that lasted less than a year, Meena faced stiff opposition from the Kejriwal government which didn’t recognise him as the head of ACB and got another officer, S S Yadav, to lead the gas investigation.

In 2015, ACB had questioned three top RIL executives: PMS Prasad, TSL Reddy and B Ganguly.

RIL petitioned Delhi High Court this July to quash the FIR following a judgment last year by a division bench of the Court that said the ACB could investigate cases of departments under the administrative authority of Delhi’s Lieutenant governor, not central government employees. The Kejriwal govt challenged the order in Supreme court.

ACB had lodged an FIR on a complaint sent to Kejriwal by former cabinet secretary T S R Subramanian, former union secretary E A S Sarma, former navy chief R H Tahiliani and lawyer Kamini Jaiswal.

The UPA government wanted to adopt a new gas-pricing formula which would have doubled the price to $8.4 per unit, as recommended by the Rangarajan panel. But as elections approached, the government didn’t implement the new prices.

The BJP government devised a new formula which raised prices by a third yet kept it much lower than $8.4/unit proposed by the previous government.