Mumbai: The Bombay High Court has summoned an official in the Petroleum Ministry for the purpose of cross examination in the ongoing case between Reliance Industries Ltd and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) over gas supply.

“Petroleum Ministry Under-Secretary S.M. Sundaram will have to appear in the court on 11 December,” RNRL sources said.

“RNRL had prayed before the division bench of Justices J.N. Patel and K.K. Tated for summoning Sundaram for cross examination,” said P.V. Rao, head, legal department of RNRL.

RNRL has also sought certain documents from the Petroleum Ministry, which has a role in determining the government’s policy on fixation of price of gas produced by private companies.

The RIL-RNRL dispute pertains to pricing of gas, among other things, that RIL was to supply to the other for its gas-based power project. On pricing, RIL has been maintaining that it is subject to government’s approval.

At the last hearing, Sundaram had filed an affidavit saying that price of gas excavated by RIL from Krishna Godavari basin will have to be approved by the central government, though the transaction is between RIL and RNRL.

RNRL is opposed to this, saying that the government is only concerned with the price of gas that is government’s share as per Production Sharing Contract between government and RIL.

While the government—approved price of gas for KG basin is $4.20 per million British Thermal Units, RNRL is seeking the gas at $2.34 mBTU.