SC hears Reliance's appeals in $1.73 billion ONGC gas dispute

The Supreme Court is hearing three appeals led by Reliance Industries challenging a Delhi High Court ruling that overturned an international arbitration award in its favour in a $1.73 billion dispute involving state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

At the centre of the case is a long-running dispute over gas that allegedly migrated from ONGC's adjoining blocks into the Reliance-led consortium's fields in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, off India's east coast.

The appeals challenge the Delhi High Court's February 2025 judgment, which set aside a 2018 arbitration award that had ruled in favour of the Reliance-led consortium.


The High Court found the arbitration award contrary to settled legal principles and accepted the government's allegations that Reliance and its foreign partners had committed an "insidious fraud" and secured "unjust enrichment of over $1.729 billion" by extracting gas from reserves they were not entitled to exploit.

Following the ruling, the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas issued a demand notice seeking $2.81 billion from the consortium.

The dispute goes back to November 2016, when the government raised a demand of $1.55 billion, along with interest and an additional $175 million towards revised cumulative profit petroleum.

The government alleged that the consortium had extracted and sold gas that had migrated from ONGC's neighbouring blocks into the area covered by Reliance's production-sharing contract.

The matter subsequently went to arbitration. In July 2018, a three-member tribunal rejected the government's claims by a 2:1 majority, ruling that the production-sharing contract did not prevent the consortium from producing and selling gas that had migrated into its contract area from outside.

The government challenged that award before the Delhi High Court later in 2018. After years of legal proceedings, the court ruled in the government's favour in February 2025, setting aside the arbitration award.

Reliance and the other appellants have now approached the Supreme Court, seeking to overturn the High Court's decision.