Supreme Court picks retired judge Ranjana Desai to mediate KG basin gas dispute

The Supreme Court has named retired apex court judge Ranjana Desai as the sole mediator to resolve the ongoing natural gas dispute in the Krishna-Godavari basin. Attorney-General R. Venkataramani informed a special bench that formal settlement talks between the central government and a corporate consortium led by Reliance Industries Limited failed to yield any workable solution.

Mediation Setup

The bench comprising Chief Justice Surya Kant alongside Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Vipul Pancholi requested Justice Desai to handle the matter due to her extensive experience in commercial cases. The court instructed the mediator to take help from two domain experts proposed by the opposing parties. Legal representatives for the consortium, including senior advocates A.M. Singhvi and Kapil Sibal, agreed to the proposed mediation process. Both sides received instructions to reach out to Justice Desai immediately to schedule their initial meetings.

Legal Background

The litigation stems from a February 2025 Delhi High Court ruling that overturned a single-judge decision which had supported an arbitral award for the corporate group. In July 2018, an international tribunal dismissed a government demand for 1.55 billion US dollars over claims that the group extracted fuel that crossed over from neighbouring blocks managed by the state-run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. Reliance Industries has strongly rejected accusations of siphoning resources, arguing that the subterranean movement of gas occurs naturally through pressure differences akin to osmosis, and highlighted that the firm invested 7.4 billion US dollars into the deepwater project to supply thirty percent of domestic production.

Context

Gas migration in shared offshore fields is a technical issue where underground deposits cross lease boundaries between adjacent blocks. Resolving such disputes usually requires specialized engineering knowledge alongside legal arbitration because underground reservoirs do not respect surface-drawn property lines.