The Supreme Court dismisses a plea challenging the USD 8.5 billion Vedanta-Cairn deal. The court said today that the Centre and ONGC's decision on the USD 8.5 billion deal was taken after due deliberation and that there were no extraneous considerations involved in the deal and it should not be interfered with by the court.

A Economic Times report says that a PIL had challenged the deal on the ground that there was a loss to state-owned ONGC on account of the sale. The apex court said that Cairn Energy should have first offered any shares in Cairn India to JV partner ONGC.

Neither ONGC nor the government pressed this right, SC said, alleging that this caused a Rs 1 lakh crore loss to ONGC.

The loss figures were attributed to the CAG report, but a bench, comprising justices K S Radhakrishnan and Dipak Misra, rejected the plea to set aside the deal.

The court cannot sit on judgement on an agreement between parties unless it is against the statute, SC said.

CAG figures are not the final word and are subject to interpretation and can be contested by the ministry, it said.