The Ambani brothers are currently fighting each other at the Supreme Court over the interpretation and implementation of a private MoU the two brothers had reportedly signed in 2005 when the Ambani empire was formally split into two. The dispute pertains to the price at which Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is supposed to sell natural gas from the KG basin to younger brother Anil Ambani’s Reliance Natural Resources Limited (RNRL). While Anil insists that under the terms of the 1995 gas-sharing Mou between the two brothers, Mukesh is bound to supply him gas at $2.34 per million metric British thermal unit (mmBtu) whereas RIL demands an increased rate of $4.20 per mmBtu.

Meanwhile, the Union Petroleum Ministry has belatedly filed a petition seeking the cancellation of the MoU itself and the Supreme Court has set up a three-member bench to begin hearing on the case on September 1.

On the face of it, it could appear to be just another corporate battle with an element of family drama as well as political intrigue. Mukesh Ambani, 52, was ranked 7th by Forbes in its list of global billionaires in March, with a net worth of $19.5 billion. Anil, 50, was at No. 34 on the list with a $10.1 billion fortune. In this battle, Anil has accused the oil and natural gas ministry of siding with Mukesh and the PMO has now sought the ministry’s views on this allegation.

Thanks to this court battle, we now have a glimpse of the massive corporate plunder of natural resources going on in the country. The Andhra offshore field is estimated to produce up to 100-120 mcmd (million cubic metres per day). The government has signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with the RIL which allows the latter to sell natural gas from the contract area at arm’s length prices (a term used to connote ‘fair-price transaction’ between two inter-related companies). The MoU between the two brothers envisages the entire gas produced from the Krishna-Godavari basin as an Ambani family fortune to be divided between the two brothers.

Having kept silent all along over this huge gas deal, the government has now belatedly woken up to demand cancellation of the private MoU between the two Ambani brothers. The government move came in the wake of the June 15 Bombay High Court verdict which upheld RIL’s claim to divide any incremental gas over and above the originally stipulated 40 mcmd (to be divided between the RNRL and NTPC at 28 mcmd and 12 mcmd respectively) on 60:40 basis between RIL and RNRL. The battle between the two brothers is over the price at which the gas is to be shared (with Anil insisting on $2.34 per mmBtu as against Mukesh’s rate of $4.20 per mmBtu), but the real issue is, who gave the Ambanis the right to treat this huge amount of natural gas as their private property?

The government now claims that the Ambanis have no ground to quarrel over something that does not belong to them, for the gas is owned by the state. But has not unbridled privatization been the cornerstone of the government’s new economic policy framework? Land, water, forest, minerals, oil and natural gas – every precious natural resource that belongs to the people has been systematically sacrificed at the altar of corporate greed. The public sector has also been systematically marginalized to swell corporate coffers. The rise of the Reliance Empire itself is a testimony to this policy of state-sponsored corporate plunder. The private MoU of the Ambani brothers is merely an extension of the numerous MoUs governments have signed with private corporations giving them a high degree of intrusive control over all kinds of natural and human resources. The time has come to declare the very framework of corporate control over natural resources null and void. Natural resources are not meant to satisfy corporate greed.