RIL seeks immediate start of KG-D6 cost recovery arbitration

With its KG-D6 cost recovery arbitration stuck for three years, Reliance Industries has sought immediate start of the proceedings for early resolution of the dispute.

Naming former UK judge Sir Bernard Rix as its arbitrator in place of former Chief Justice of India S. P. Bharucha, who quit earlier this month, RIL through its legal counsel has written to the Oil Ministry seeking start of the proceedings from next month, sources privy to the development said.

Bharucha was earlier RIL nominee on a three—member arbitration panel, which is to decide if the oil ministry was right in disallowing over $2.3 billion of KG-D6 cost as output lagged targets. He, however, recused himself after the government challenged his nomination more than two—and—half years after his nomination.

The government felt he had not disclosed all previous associations with RIL and that his arbitration could create doubts about his independence and impartiality.

The company, in the letter, expressed “distress” at the attempts of the government to remove Justice Bharucha from the panel of arbitration.

Bharucha, it said, has an impeccable reputation and it was “unfortunate” that the government chose to demonstrate, in the course of an international arbitration, that it did not have faith in a former chief justice.

Bharucha was nominated as an arbitrator on November 23, 2011 and the correspondence relating to his disclosures ended in June. This month, the government sought his removal from the panel of arbitrators, leading to his resignation.