Bombay High Court Dismisses Plea Seeking CBI Probe Against RIL and Mukesh Ambani

The Bombay High Court on Friday dismissed a petition seeking a CBI investigation against Reliance Industries Limited and its chairman Mukesh Ambani over allegations of unlawful extraction of natural gas from fields belonging to Oil and Natural Gas Corporation in the Krishna-Godavari basin. The bench, comprising Chief Justice Shree Chandrashekhar and Justice Suman Shyam, declined to grant relief to petitioner Jitendra Maru, who had sought registration of an FIR on charges including theft, misappropriation, and criminal breach of trust.

According to the petition, RIL allegedly engaged in a “massive organized fraud” between 2004 and 2013 by drilling sideways from its deep-sea wells into adjacent ONGC fields, thereby extracting natural gas unlawfully. Maru claimed that ONGC discovered the alleged unauthorized activity in 2013 and subsequently reported the matter to the Government of India.

The plea also cited findings from an independent investigation by consultants DeGolyer and MacNaughton, along with a report by the Justice A. P. Shah Committee, both of which reportedly concluded that RIL had tapped into ONGC’s gas reserves. However, the High Court dismissed the petition, and a detailed copy of the order is awaited.

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