ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) single bench comprising Justice Athar Minallah, while hearing the writ petitions of 314 CNG stations of Potohar region, has directed Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL) Managing Director to submit gas load management plan for industry and CNG sector before the court.
The petitioners have adopted 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 sane CNG.
The same IHC bench, on December 04, directed the SNGPL not to disconnect the connections of 314 CNG gas stations and had sought reply from the ministry of petroleum and natural resources.
The counsels for SNGPL Ali Rukh and Hafeezullah Yaqoob on the other hand 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 consumers.
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 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. However, Justice Athar Minallah directed the MD SNGPL to submit gas loadmanagement plan to CNG and industrial sector.
Meanwhile, the same IHC directed Inspector General (IG) Islamabad police and ministry of interior to submit five years audit report of the amount that Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) collected in the form of fines imposed on traffic rules violators.
