In a dramatic speech peppered by cheering shareholders, Anil Ambani, chairman of Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL), accused India's oil ministry of siding with his brother's Reliance industries Ltd (RIL) in a fight over gas pricing, calling the government interference "partisan and biased."
Anil Ambani wants to enforce a 2005 agreement that compels RIL to sell gas to his firm at 44 per cent discount to a government-set price. The corporate battle is now in the Supreme Court, but the government has rolled up its sleeves and calls gas a national resource.
"There is no family, there is no emotion but pure and simple corporate greed for RIL. Despite the binding commercial agreement that exists between RIL and RNRL, the former has tried every trick in the book and outside the book to dishonour the contract," the younger Ambani said.
It has taken five years for Anil Ambani to display his emotions in public once again.
Ever since the Ambani bothers fought and divided the business, all the barbs, accusations and charges have been traded away from cameras.
But Tuesday was different.
But the real villain of Tuesday’s piece was not Mukesh Ambani. Anil let all his pent up anger out against the Oil Minister Murli Deora.
"Oil ministry is playing a blatantly biased role in the gas dispute. There’s unnecessary intervention by the oil ministry in the Supreme Court. Its intervention is baseless. Where does the question arise of our corporate agreement carving up national asset or property? This bogey is being clearly raised to help RIL," Anil said.
Anil's charges are serious, especially since it is against a sitting minister. Clearly the Annual General Meeting (AGM) was the right place for him to gather support.Accusing the oil ministry of seeking a return to the dismantled license raj regime, he said the government cannot fix the gas price RNRL pays to RIL.
“The actions taken by the oil ministry set wrong precedents to other ministries and investor confidence will get eroded if this continues,” he said.
Clearly, the Ambani battle has been raised to a new pitch on Tuesday after Anil's accusations in public. Gas is crucial to the family division of business and now Anil Ambani is even pitching for the entire contract to be taken back from his elder brother.
He also said that corporate greed at RIL is impacting its stance with NTPC which is also suffering a similar fate as RNRL.
It may be recalled that Anil Ambani had on July 15 written a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh alleging that the Petroleum Ministry was playing a partisan role and was siding with RIL in a commercial dispute with his group firm RNRL.
The Prime Minister's Office had subsequently forwarded the letter to the Oil Ministry for comments. The same was also believed to have been forwarded to the Law Ministry.
source: NDTVPROFIT
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