KONARK PRATAP GUPTA
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR FROM SCHOOL OF LAW, KIIT-DU BHUBANESWAR
ABSTRACT
The Article will try to reflect the recent approach taken by the Supreme Court of India while dealing with Oil and Gas exploration sector specially focusing on the applicability and analysis of “Public Trust Doctrine”. The Article will try to demonstrate how Government of India through its policies like NELP[1] by introducing concepts like PSC[2] actually failed to fulfil the constitutional mandate as provided under the Constitution of India. The Article will try to investigate that how that government by referring Oil and gas exploration dispute to Arbitration is unable to fulfill its constitutional mandate towards natural Resources by virtue of being the trustee of Natural Resources under the Public Trust Doctrine. The Article is basically divided into two parts, the very first part will deal with the “Emergence of New Jurisprudence of Scarce Natural Resources (with reference to Oil & Gas exploration in India)” in the list of the recent judicial pronouncement and its analysis with regard to Public Trust Doctrine. The Second Part will deal with “Implication of this new Jurisprudence of scarce Natural Resources and its relation to the Process of Arbitration with special reference to Oil and Gas exploration Disputes in India” where Article will reflect the paradox created between the Public Trust Doctrine with regard to Oil and gas and Its dispute settlement mechanism i.e., Arbitration.
Keywords: Public Trust Doctrine, Production Sharing Contracts, Arbitrability, Public policy, NELP, HELP.
[1] New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP) is a policy adopted by Government of India in 1997 indicating the new contractual and fiscal model for award of hydrocarbon acreages towards exploration and production (E&P).
[2] Production Sharing Contract (PSC) is a term used in the Hydrocarbon industry and refers to an agreement between Contractor and Government whereby Contractor bears all exploration risks, production and development costs in return for its stipulated share of (profit from) production resulting from this effort. The costs incurred by the contractor are recoverable in case of commercial discovery. Thus, PSC is a fiscal regime existing in the exploration and production of hydrocarbons.