The Gujarat High Court has set aside clauses in contracts requiring Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) to pay GAIL (India) Limited transmission charges for natural gas even though it had laid its own pipeline network, holding that the provisions were “unfair, arbitrary, and against public policy”.

The court also directed GAIL to refund the charges paid during the legally permissible period, with simple interest at 8 per cent per annum.

The ruling, delivered by Justice Nirzar S Desai on October 16 and made available on Thursday, came two days after another single-judge bench of the High Court ruled in RIL’s favour in a separate dispute over government land allotted for its special economic zone (SEZ) project in Jamnagar.

In the gas transmission dispute, the court set aside the contested clauses in two contracts between RIL and GAIL, executed on March 30, 2000, and August 31, 2008.…