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Panna-Mukta hearing on September 9

The Delhi high court today deferred to September 9 the hearing on two public interest petitions seeking scrapping of the controversial Panna-Mukta oil fields contract to the Reliance-Enron consortium.

A special division bench comprising Justice Y K Sabharwal and Justice C K Mahajan, who had kept the matters 'part heard', released them today and directed it to be listed before the regular bench of Justice Sabharwal and Justice K S Gupta.

The court was hearing a public interest litigation filed by the Centre for Public Interest Litigations and advocate Dr B L Wadhera seeking cancellation of the contract to the joint venture on the ground that it was done in an 'improper and illegal' manner.

Counsel for CPIL Prashant Bhushan urged the bench to hear him for two hours on any Friday and promised that he would complete his arguments before that, but the judges refused to oblige saying that let the matter be listed before the regular bench.

The PIL alleged that illegal gratification was paid to certain public servants to tilt the contract in favour of the consortium. The Panna-Mukta oilfields are owned by Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

It further said the rate at which the contract was granted was much below the market price of the oil in it.

UNI