ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) single bench, comprising Justice Athar Minallah, has directed the Ministry of Petroleum to formulate a policy of equal gas supply to all sectors including CNG sector.
The court issued directives while hearing the writ petitions of owners of CNG stations of Potohar region against the suspension of gas supply to the stations for three months.
The court directed that apprehensions of CNG sectors should be reviewed in the meeting between secretary ministry of petroleum and representative delegation of the CNG sector. Advocate Mukhdoom Ali Khan counsel for petitioners have pleaded before the court that the ministry of petroleum and natural resources has been treating CNG sector in a discriminating way when they had been providing gas to the other industrial sector sans CNG. They added that this discrimination is not only unconstitutional but violation of fundamental rights.
On December 4, this IHC bench while directing SNGPL not to disconnect the connections of 314 CNG gas stations, had sought reply from the ministry of petroleum and natural resources.
The counsels for SNGPL Ali Rukh and Hafeezullah Yaqoob on the other hand had informed the court that the prevalent situation is due to a huge gap in demand and supply. SNGPL has a priority list and the first priority is domestic consumer. They further said that under the contract the CNG station owners signed while applying for the gas connection, the SNGPL has the right to interrupt the supply of gas to them at any point of time. The counsels said that the gas load management issue has already been discussed by the IHC Justice Riaz Ahmed Khan in 2011 on the identical petitions.
