Dear Kian,

Stated below another report by a legal news portal . I am a tax expert and I have followed this case from the beginning. The report suggesting that Mr Modi was supporting Ruias is completely mis-placed . The real fight was between Reliance and Essar and you can call it a shadow fight. As a matter of facts it was Modi Government who in fact filed filed the petition . If this report is to be believed then some donkey may report that Modi was paid by reliance to file the petition.

"SC sets asides Gujarat High Court order on Essar Oil sales tax case
17 Jan. 2012 22:38 Soibam Rocky Singh New Delhi

The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Gujarat High Court which extended the sales tax deferment benefit given to Essar Oil on its petroleum refinery at Vadinar in Jamnagar District of Gujarat till 2020.
A bench of Justice Asok Kumar Ganguly and Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar today passed the order on a petition filed by Gujarat government against the order of the High Court which gave Essar Oil the benefit of sales tax incentive under the government of Gujarat “Capital Investment Incentive to Premier/Prestigious Unit Scheme, 1995-2000” scheme.
The scheme was introduced by the state government as an incentive to help accelerate industrial development of the backward area of the state. The operative period of the scheme was from 16.08.1995 upto 15.08.2000, during which new units including Essar Oil had to start commercial production to avail the benefits.
Essar opted for sales-tax deferment option under the scheme by which it had agreed to pay sales tax to Gujarat government in deferred instalments up to a maximum of 17 years.
However the commercial production of the refinery hit its first major roadblock in April 1999 when an NGO moved the High Court against the laying of pipelines in a national marine park citing environmental concerns. This was followed by further public interest litigation preventing Essar from commencing work for laying down the pipelines.
In the meantime, on 29 April 2000, the state government discontinued the scheme with effect from 01 January 2000 but made an exception for industry units in pipelines cases to start commercial production within 1 January 2002. Later the time limit was further extended till 15 August 2003.
By an order dated 19 January 2004, the Supreme paved the way for the government to grant authorization to Essar for laying the pipeline.
Subsequently on 26 November 2006 Essar commenced commercial production and started paying sales tax on the products sold by it as the state government rejected the benefit to Essar on the grounds of delay in starting production at the refinery.
In 2007, Essar filed a writ petition before the High Court contending that for no fault of it, Essar was prevented from completing the project and that it was on account of being so prevented, Essar could not commence the commercial production within the time limit of 15 August 2003 and that therefore despite the delay it should be entitled to sales tax benefit.
The High Court allowed sales tax deferment benefit up to 125 per cent of investment in the refinery and curtailed the deferment period till 2020.
It is against this judgment of the High Court that the Gujarat government had approached the apex court.
The apex court on Tuesday set aside the order of the High Court observing, “In that factual scenario, the exercise undertaken by the High Court in the impugned judgment by directing various adjustments which virtually re-wrote the State's exemption scheme, is an exercise which is, with great respect, neither warranted in law nor supported by precedents... For the reasons aforesaid we allow the appeal. The High Court judgment is set aside.”
“In this case, Essar was categorically told by letter dated 28.05.2002, which is much prior to the expiry of the period, that time for availing the exemption cannot be extended. Admittedly, Essar failed to meet the deadline,” the bench observed "