New Delhi, Jan 9,2023: The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea by Centre against the Delhi High Court order, which dismissed its plea in connection with appointment of two of the three judges on an arbitration panel examining a cost-recovery dispute in Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL) KG-D6 gas block.

Citing alleged bias, the Centre had approached the high court seeking a direction that the two judges should be discharged from their functions.

During a hearing in the matter on Monday, a bench headed by Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud and comprising Justice P.S. Narasimha told the Centre’s counsel that it is not inclined to interfere with the high court order. “Sorry, we would not like to interfere…”, said the bench.

In December last year, the high court dismissed on maintainability grounds a petition by the Centre seeking removal of two of the three arbitrators in its ongoing arbitration proceedings. The Central government moved the apex court challenging this verdict.

Reliance counsel’s preliminary objection was upheld by the high court. However, the high court had clarified that it did not either consider or rule on Centre’s allegation against the members of the arbitral tribunal and that all contentions were kept open.

In November 2011, RIL had initiated arbitration, disputing the disallowance of more than $2.3 billion of the KG-D6 cost by the government on the ground of gas output lagging in meeting targets.