Divestment Minister Arun Shourie on Tuesday said that the opinion of the law ministry and the Attorney General will be taken on Supreme Court ruling staying privatisation of HPCL and BPCL, which he described as a 'major setback' to reforms.
"We will consult the law ministry and the Attorney General for available options and these will be put before the Cabinet Committee on Divestment on October 3," Shourie said in Berlin.
Speaking on the sidelines of a conference of Asia-Pacific German Business, he said the government has advised global advisors and bidders that no further work on HPCL and BPCL will be done.
"All processes for divestment in HPCL and BPCL have been stopped," he said.
Shourie said the Apex Court judgement would lead to more complexities.
"It will have serious consequences for the government's divestment programme," he said.
"It will have a far reaching consequence not only for divestment in these two PSUs (HPCL and BPCL) but in other matters also," Shourie said.
There may be other PSUs not only at the central level but also at the state level that were created through the legislative Acts and whose divestment would become more difficult, he said.
The government had gone ahead with the sell-off process in the two oil PSUs after getting Attorney General's opinion that the divestment of government equity in the two corporations, which were acquired through an Act of Parliament in 1974, did not require law makers' nod.
Global oil majors Royal/Dutch Shell-Saudi Aramco combine, BP Plc, Petronas of Malaysia, Kuwait Petroleum Corp, Reliance Industries and Essar Oil were in race for acquiring 34.01 per cent stake in country's second largest oil firm, HPCL.
HPCL, where government holds 51.01 per cent stake, offered a ready-made, nationwide network of 4,849 petrol pumps and a fifth of $15 billion oil retail market.
The government also planned to sell 35.2 per cent of BPCL, in which it holds 66.20 per cent, through a public offer in domestic and international markets.
