The Bombay High Court Tuesday ordered status quo to be maintained in the dispute between the Ambani brothers on the gas supplies from the Krishna Godavari basin off India's southeastern coast.

A division bench comprising Justice J.N. Patel and Justice B.M. Kanade has fixed July 22 as the next date of hearing.

The dispute revolves around a pact between Anil Ambani-led Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) and his elder brother's Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on which firm has the rights over the gas supplies.

The earlier interim order, in which the court restrained RIL from selling the gas or from entering into any contract with a third party, had lapsed. RIL was subsequently planning to start production from the basin.

The court had also restrained RIL from entering into contracts to sell the gas from this basin - known in official jargon as KG-D6 gas - with companies other than RNRL and the state-run National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC). It had also asked the two brothers to settle the dispute within four months.

But the two sides failed to reach an agreement within the stipulated timeframe.

According to the June 2005 family demerger agreement, RNRL claimed at least half of the 80 million standard cubic metres per day peak production planned from KG-D6 fields off Andhra Pradesh that are the country's biggest source of hydrocarbons.

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