ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court of Pakistan on Thursday adjourned the hearing on the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) pricing formula until Dec 17, DawnNews reported.

The Court ordered that the price of CNG would remain unchanged until the next hearing.

A two-member bench of the apex court comprising of Justice Jawwad S. Khwaja and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain resumed the hearing on the case pertaining to the formula for CNG pricing.

Secretary Petroleum, Dr Waqar Masood informed the court that the Cabinet committee would decide on the price of CNG within two weeks once the audit of filling stations would be complete and that there was no reason for deciding the price before the audit process is completed.

An official of the Federal Bureau of Revenue (FBR) submitted before the court,  the tax records of CNG station owners for the past three years.

According to the details the amount collected as tax from CNG stations between 2009 to 2011 amounted to Rs 4.09 billion.

More over an Oil and gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) official submitted a detailed reply on the information sought by the apex court a day earlier concerning the issuance of license by the regulatory authority.

According to the details submitted, 6,471 applications were received by Ogra for the issuance of CNG station license between 2002 and 2011, out of which 6,152 applicants were issued licenses, whereas 380 show-cause notices and 131 warning notices were issued during the same period.

Tax details and audit reports were not required for the issuance of CNG station licenses according to Ogra officials.

Officials gave further details that around 1 billion rupees were collected as penalty for various reasons adding that 1,233 filling stations were inspected and that only five companies had submitted audit reports , during the past ten years.