The federal minister for petroleum and the heads of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (OGRA) and Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) are among the officials who have been served notices for January 24 in a petition challenging the recent increase in the price of natural gas.
Rana Faizul Hasan of the NGO United Human Rights Commission Pakistan (UHRCP) filed the petition, which named the secretary for law, justice and parliamentary affairs, federal communication minister through secretary communication, federal minister for petroleum, OGRA chairperson, Sindh chief secretary and the Sui Southern Gas Company managing director as respondents.
The bench asked about the urgency of the issue since the court is currently on winter vacation. Hasan said that the entire country has been affected by the gas outage and that the increase in price would impact millions of consumers. He also referred to a statement by the petroleum minister, who had alleged that CNG station owners are earning a profit of Rs28 per kilogramme of CNG.
The petitioner maintained that the increase is against the greater public interest.
The bench ordered its office to issue notices to all the respondents and the deputy attorney general Pakistan for January 24.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 5th, 2012.
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This is both too funny and too sad all at the same time.
The funny part is that a price increase is greater than the public interest. The public is never interested in a price increase in anything.
It is sad that is shows what happens when there are no free markets. This not a question of bacis economics, it now have become a issue for the courts. The courts in PAK maybe all powerful but they cannot overturn the basic rules of economics of supply and demand.