'This once again strengthens the apprehensions about the biased and partisan approach of petroleum ministry.'

Maintaining that RIL's illegal levy of marketing margin is a 'double whammy', Chalasanai said: 'On one hand, the government is denied its lawful share of the additional sales realisation generated by RIL through this levy, and on the other hand the government also has to eventually pay for this additional burden in the form of enhanced subsidy for the fertiliser and power sectors.'

This, he said, was 'a shocking case of illegal transfer of over Rs. 10,000 crore from government coffers to RIL'.

'The major burden will be borne by the government of India in the form of fertiliser subsidies and the governments of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the form of power subsidies,' said Chalasani.

He said Reliance Industries was selling the gas without using any market intermediary to customers identified by the government, which made the term 'marketing margin' a 'complete contradiction'.

'There is no element of marketing involved - there can be no question of the levy of a marketing margin,' said Chalasani.

He also drew a parallel between state-owned gas utility GAIL, which was not permitted to charge any such marketing margin.

'GAIL is not permitted to charge any marketing margin on the supply of gas to government's identified customers under the administered price mechanism (APM) whereas the private monopoly gas supplier RIL is blatantly charging the same,' said Chalasani.

Reliance Industries is locked in a legal battle with both Reliance Natural Resources, part of the R-ADAG group, and state-owned power utility NTPC over pricing disputes and breach of contract.