Informist, Friday, Jul. 11, 2025

--HC OKs arbitration award asking ONGC to pay $14.7 mln to Jindal Drilling

NEW DELHI – The division bench of the Bombay High Court has upheld an arbitration award from 2013, which asked Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd. to pay $14.7 million along with interest to Jindal Drilling and Industries Ltd. "We accordingly proceed to dismiss the appeals by upholding the impugned judgment and order dated Apr. 28, 2015 passed by the single judge as well as the impugned award dated Oct. 9, 2013 passed by the Arbitral Tribunal," said the bench of Chief Justice Alok Aradhe and Justice Sandeep V. Marne.

The case dates back to when ONGC entered into an agreement with Jindal Drilling in 2006, hiring the latter's drilling unit RIG Noble Charlie Yester to conduct drilling operations in offshore waters of India. ONGC, the petitioner, had also executed three more contracts with Jindal Drilling for three other works.

Jindal Drilling executed the works awarded under the contracts with ONGC and accordingly submitted various bills to the latter. ONGC did not dispute the bills but refused to pay the same. The oil exploration company reasoned that another company Discovery Enterprises Pvt. Ltd., which it said was a sister concern of Jindal Drilling, was liable to compensate ONGC in other arbitration proceedings.

ONGC argued that it had secured arbitral awards of INR 630 million and $1.8 million in 2013 from Discovery Enterprises and, therefore, the said amount due must be adjusted against the amount the petitioner is liable to pay Jindal Drilling. The contention was rejected by a single judge bench of the high court in 2015, against which ONGC moved the division bench.

At 1210 IST, shares of ONGC were trading 0.4% lower at INR 242.04 on the National Stock Exchange, while shares of Jindal Drilling were up 0.9% at INR 617.60. End

US$1 = INR 85.87

IST, or Indian Standard Time, is five-and-a-half hours ahead of GMT

Reported by Surya Tripathi

Edited by Nishant Maher

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