SC rejects CNG price hike, seeks record

The Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected a request submitted by the CNG station owners seeking an increase in the price of per kilo price of Compressed Natural Gas and sought records pertaining to the details of tariff accounts.
According to a private television channel, a two-member bench of the apex court comprising of Justice Jawwad S Khawaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain heard the case pertaining to the price of CNG.
During hearing, the counsel for Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) presented his argument in the court.
The court sought records pertaining to the tariff of 3395 CNG stations, pointing out the existence of filling stations operating without licenses and asked four questions in this regards.
The first query was about how many requests did Ogra receive for CNG stations licenses, followed by the second question asking the number of licenses issued by Ogra.
The court then continued to inquire about the number of license requests rejected by Ogra and the number of licenses pocketed by station owners?
While giving his remarks Justice Khwaja termed the CNG association as a cartel adding that the government seemed to oblige to the demands made by the cartel.
He further said that the court was not concerned with whether the cabinet had the issue of CNG pricing formula on its agenda or not and that the court and the parliament had it’s own respective powers.
Counsel for Ogra informed the court that the new pricing was formulating after including the input of public hearings and stakeholders.
During the hearing Justice Arif Khilfi said that the matter is in courts and a section of society was adversely affected by it adding that the ministry of petroleum should take attend to the issue in the interest of public benefit.
Lawyers for Sindh CNG association, Dr Abdul Hafeez Pirzada said that the price of CNG was completely de-regulated and that neither the courts nor the ministry of petroleum had the authority to decide the price of CNG.