Ambani hearing: Judge has RIL, RNRL shares

Mukesh Ambani-led RIL and Anil Ambani group firm RNRL on Thursday urged Justice R V Raveendran to ignore news reports on his presence on the Bench despite having shares of the two warring companies.

"It is a joint request to ignore an article published in a newspaper (that judges having any financial interest in any party should automatically recuse himself)," RIL counsel

Harish Salve said on the third day of the hearing of the Ambani gas dispute.

Ram Jethamalani, appearing for RNRL, seconded this when the bench, headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan, resumed hearing after lunch.

Before the commencement of hearing on October 20, Justice Raveendran, who declared possession of equal number of shares of both RIL and RNRL, had offered to recuse from the Bench if either of the parties had any objection.

However, some media reports referred to the issue and wondered if Justice Raveendran should have continued on the bench to hear the Ambani brothers' dispute.

Both the senior advocates said that the article should be treated as contempt and Justice Raveendran should continue hearing the matter.

"Ignore that article and grant us the opportunity to be heard by you. You continue with the matter," Salve said. He said this is a case (report) in anticipation of some other matter.

Salve was referring to the recent case of Justice S H Kapadia in which a noted Supreme Court advocate questioned him for being part of the special forest bench while hearing the matter related to Vedanta.

Justice Kapadia continued to be part of the bench as there were no objection from any party on his declaration that he held shares of the company.

Later, the court issued notice to the advocate for initiating contempt for allegedly questioning Justice Kapadia from hearing the matter in an interview to a news magazine.

The news report in a national daily said that Supreme Court judges do not seem to comply with internationally accepted standards for managing conflict of interest in cases where they have a financial stake.

The Bench, also comprising Justice P Sathasivam, made no comments and went ahead with the hearing of the matter.