Supreme Court Bench recused from taking up PIL in Cairn-Vedanta Deal

A Supreme Court Bench comprising Justices justices H L Dattu and C K Prasad on 2 March 2012 recused itself from hearing a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the validity of the 8.5 billion dollar Cairn-Vedanta deal. The bench however not stated the reason for the not taking up the plea.

The PIL filed on 27 February 2012 by an advocate, Arun Kumar Agarwal, challenged the validity of the Cairn-Vedanta deal and sought a CBI probe into reasons for the government’s nod to the deal.

The PIL also sought CBI probe into reasons for ONGC and government in "not asserting" their legal rights in the issue. It maintained that the ONGC, in an agreement with Cairn group, had a clause that in case the Cairn Group wanted to sell its shares in Cairn India, it would first offer the same to the ONGC. Cairn Energy, notwithstanding the terms of agreement, signed a deal with Vedanta group to sell its shares in Cairns India, without making an offer to the ONGC.

The PIL claimed that the deal has caused a loss of around 1 lakh crore to the national exchequer.