PESHAWAR: Peshawar High Court on Tuesday reserved its judgment over multiple petitions challenging natural gas ‘loadshedding’ for domestic consumers and closure of CNG stations for a month on orders of administration in different districts.

A bench consisting of Justice Syed Mohammad Attique Shah and Justice Syed Arshad Ali heard arguments of lawyers appearing for the domestic consumers including chairmen of seven village councils of Peshawar and that of different CNG stations here, and the counsel representing Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) whose general manager Waqas Shinwari also turned up in the cases.

Advocate Yasir Khattak appeared for the CNG stations and contended that in different districts the respective deputy commissioners had ordered closure of the stations under section 144 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) till Jan 31.

He contended that the DCs had no authority to impose section 144 on provision of gas to the stations, therefore the said orders should be set aside.

Domestic consumers should be given preference under federal govt’s 2018 policy, SNGPL’s counsel argues

Advocate Mohsin Kamran Siddique, representing the village councils’ chairmen, argued that under Article 158 of the Constitution Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, especially its domestic consumers, should have precedence over other parts of Pakistan in meeting the requirement from the well heads situated here.

He requested the bench to declare that the natural gas produced from well heads in KP could not be exported out of the province without fulfilling the basic requirements of domestic consumers of this province.

He argued that there was no schedule of gas load management or outage due to which the consumers had been subjected to oppressive suspension of natural gas supply.

Advocate Abbas Sangeen Khan, who has challenged natural gas ‘loadshedding’ argued that Article 158 of the Constitution was very clear on the issue and the SNGPL had constantly been violating the constitutional provision.

He also referred to different judgments of the high court in support of his contentions.

The SNGPL’s counsel Asad Jan argued that the federal government had formulated a policy in 2018 under which the domestic consumers had to be given preference over all other natural gas consumers in winter season.

He stated that the CNG stations were only closed for a period of 25 days so as to ensure provision of the commodity to domestic users.

He stated that the SNGPL had mostly been providing natural gas to domestic consumers during crucial timings so as to facilitate them in preparation of meals and food along with other uses.

The SNGPL GM Waqas Shinwari informed the bench that the transmission network was spread over 9,000 kms due to which there was difficulty in provision of gas in the winter season. Also, he added that there was acute shortage of gas in the province due to huge gap between demand and supply.

He stated that in order to meet load requirement of domestic consumers the supply of gas to CNG stations had to be curtailed completely in line with the government policy.

He added that since 2021 the SNGPL had also stopped giving new gas connections to consumers.

When Justice Arshad Ali asked why they had not been installing separate transmission lines in accordance with Article 158 of the Constitution for this province, he stated that till 2004 the province had been utiliing natural gas from Sui and afterwards production started from well heads in this province.

When the bench inquired what the provincial government was doing in this matter, an additional advocate general Mubahsir Khan said that the federal government had issued directives to the provincial government for imposition of section 144 CrPC on provision of natural gas to the CNG stations so as to avoid any public protests in the wake of suspension of supply to domestic consumers.

Published in Dawn, January 17th, 2024