2 Judgements on Ambanis case

The Supreme Court’s verdict on the Mukesh Vs Anil Ambani case is due on Friday, and   it’s likely that there will be two judgements. 

The Ambani dispute was heard by a three-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan.

 The Supreme Court’s list of cases for Friday shows that Justice P Sathasivam and Justice B Sudershan Reddy  will deliver separate judgements.   If the two judgments don’t concur, the majority opinion will prevail.


The case is one of India’s biggest corporate battles- it’s a face-off between two brothers, both billionaires, who own gigantic business groups.

At the heart of the war is the gas produced by Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin.  The gas is sold to Anil Ambani’s  Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL) for its power plants.  Mukesh wants to raise the price that was agreed upon by a family agreement in 2005 after the brothers decided to split the empire built by their father, Dhirubhai Ambani.

In 2007, the government said that the agreed-upon rate of $2.34 per unit was far too low.  Mukesh Ambani said he had to raise his rates accordingly to $4.2 per unit and follow government orders because the government owns the gas, he’s just a contractor.

Anil accused Mukesh of artificially inflating his costs and decreasing his output to make super-normal profits.

And the government says it doesn’t recognize the family contract between Anil and Mukesh because the Krishna Godavari gas is government property, and therefore, two private parties cannot strike a deal without the government’s clearance. The government also says it has set the new price based on a fair formula.