PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court on Wednesday extended a stay order against recovery of arrears on account of the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess from around 450 CNG stations and dozens of industrial units by the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited.

A bench consisting of Justice Nisar Hussain and Justice Waqar Ahmad Seth fixed April 19 for the next hearing into dozens of petitions filed by the CNG stations and industrial units against the recovery of the said arrears for the period for which the superior courts had declared the levy of such cess illegal.

It ruled that until the next hearing, the interim relief granted to the petitioners would remain intact and that the SNGPL should not recover the said arrears.

The respondents in the case are the federal government through the petroleum and natural resources ministry, the SNGPL, and Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority.

CNG stations, industrial units have sought court orders to declare levy of GIDC unlawful

The petitioners have requested the court to declare illegal the imposition and collection of the GIDC arrears with markup.

They prayed the court to declare that they were not bound or required to pay GIDC arrears and that any coercive or adverse means and threats, applied or resorted to by the respondents, including the federal government and the SNGPL, would be illegal.

Several lawyers including Shumail Ahmad Butt, Ishaq Ali Qazi, Ishtiaq Ahmad, Arshid Ali, Yasir Khattak, etc. appeared for the petitioners and said the GIDC was first introduced through the GIDC Act, 2011 but was declared illegal and unconstitutional by the Peshawar High Court and the Supreme Court.

A deputy attorney general, Manzoor Khalil, representing federal government requested the court to allow him some time for preparing the case.

The bench observed that on one hand the government had been pleading top vacate the stay order as it had been facing financial loss and on the other hand it had been seeking adjournment in these petitions.

The lawyers for the petitioners said the federal government recently passed the GIDC Act 2015 and included Section 8 in it for recovery of arrears for the period for which the GIDC levy was declared illegal.

They argued that the said introduction of Section 8 in the new GIDC Act 2015 without curing the defects pointed out by the superior judiciary in the earlier law amounted to encroaching upon the powers of judicial review available to high court and Supreme Court.

They said the government and SNGPL had now been recovering arrears to the tune of Rs 50 to 55 billion from industrial and commercial concerns in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The petitioners said previously, Ogra had imposed GIDC through the GIDC Act 2011 and that the government and SNGPL were mandated to recover it from CNG stations, industries and other users.

The rates of GIDC were later increased by way of Finance Act, 2012 and thereafter through the Finance Act, 2014.

The All Pakistan CNG Association and numerous other consumers later challenged GIDC before the Peshawar High Court, which restrained respondents from recovery of the cess from them.

Afterwards, the Supreme Court dismissed appeals filed by the government against the high court verdict as well as review petitions against it.

Published in Dawn, March 17th, 2016