A Peshawar High Court bench on Tuesday referred a petition against the outages and low pressure of natural gas supplied to domestic consumers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to another chief justice-headed bench, which is already hearing the matter.
The development came after Justice Mohammad Ibrahim Khan and Justice Ijaz Anwer heard arguments on the petition filed by advocate Abbas Khan Sangeen, who requested the court to declare gas loadshedding and low pressure unconstitutional and illegal.
The petitioner contended that the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited violated Article 158 of the Constitution and a high court judgement by resorting to gas outages and low pressure.
He said Article 158 of the Constitution declared that the province, where a wellhead of natural gas was located, should have precedence over other parts of the country about benefits from that wellhead.
Mr Abbas added that in 2011, a high court bench had pronounced that supply of natural gas should remain uninterrupted to the areas producing it.
The respondents in the petition are the federal government through the energy secretary, KP government through the chief secretary, Ogra chairman,secretaries of the inter-provincial coordination and natural resources ministries,and SNGPL general manager in Peshawar.
The petitioner said KP had been producing natural gas more than the need of its domestic and commercial consumers, but that aspect had not been considered by the respondents, including SNGPL and Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority, so the residents suffered from continuous gas outages and low pressure.
He also said the pressure of gas supply to CNG stations had been drastically reduced troubling people. He said gas supply to CNG stations was suspended on different days of the week.
The petitioner said last month, the SNGPL general manager appeared before a bench headed by the chief justice and blamed gas low pressure and load management on the rusted and worn-out pipelines and said those pipelines were being replaced to address the issue.
He, however, said the petroleum secretary had informed a National Assembly committee an acute shortage of natural gas and said consumers won’t get continuous gas supply in the winter season and that it would be available every day for small duration only.
The bench observed that as the issue was earlier taken up by a bench headed by the chief justice, it would be appropriate to refer the petition to it for hearing.
The petroleum secretary and SNGPL general manager have already submitted their respective comments on the petition contending that the petition was not maintainable, so it should be dismissed.
The secretary had said the demand of gas in the country was in excess of the local supply and the federal government was making “all-out efforts” to meet the nationwide demand.
He said the federal government, to manage gas allocation and load management, had approved the Natural Gas Allocation and Management Policy, 2005, which declared domestic consumers top priority for gas supply.
The secretary added that in the winter, gas consumption by the domestic sector increased manifold on account of the use of room and water heaters but on the other hand, indigenous gas sources were continuously depleting.
The SNGPL GM contended in his comments on the petition that gas supply to consumers was a policy matter, so the high court couldn’t interfere in it.
He added that under the Ogra Ordinance, 2002, the remedies were available with an aggrieved person in term of filing complaint, appeal and review before different forums, so the petitioner should go to them first.
