KARACHI, Aug 8: The Sindh High Court asked the compressed natural gas dealers on Friday to submit a break-up of the CNG price charged by them.

Representing the respondent CNG Dealers Association, Advocate Khalid Jawed Khan took issue with petitioner-lawyer Javaid Ahmed Chhatari when he claimed that the dealers were making a profit of up to 135 per cent in the absence of any price control.

The city and provincial governments said that CNG had not been listed as an essential commodity, the price of which could be regulated and enforced by them. The federal petroleum ministry said price fixation was the job of the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority while Ogra claimed that its mandate was confined to prescribing the ‘input’ price at which the gas was sold to the dealers by the gas pipeline companies.

The Ogra rules, Advocate Chhatari said, obliged the dealers to negotiate the price but the consumers learn of it only when they make payment. The price was neither advertised in the media nor displayed outside the CNG stations. The dealers never sought the consumers’ views or objections and charged the price arbitrarily. Being government licensees, the dealers could not be allowed to charge at will, he submitted before a bench comprising acting Chief Justice Azizullah M. Memon and Justice Khalid Ali Z. Qazi.

Sindh High Court Bar Association Secretary Munirur Rehman, who was present in the courtroom, supported the contentions raised by Mr Chhatari and the bench asked him to assist the court as amicus curiae. The hearing was adjourned to August 20.

Mr Chhatari contended that the CNG stations were supplied gas by the Sui Southern Gas Company at Rs22.27 per kilogram while the dealers belonging to the association sold it for Rs47.25 per kilo. The dealers who were not members of the respondent association charged Rs43.83. The input price before July 1 was Rs17.25 per kilo and the gas was sold for Rs38.25 per kilo. Over and above the exorbitant price, the dealers recovered 15 per cent general sales tax, which they were refunded at the end of the financial year, without extending any benefit to the real tax payer. The lawyer said the dealers could only charge a reasonable profit after including their overhead expenses in the price.

Contesting the claim, Advocate Khalid Jawed Khan said 28 ‘elements’, including the employees’ pay and maintenance costs, had to be factored in the price. The price increase announced on July 1 actually amounted to Rs 9 per kilo. The dealers were, therefore, charging Rs47.25 per kilo from the consumers. If the margin of profit was really as wide as claimed by the petitioner, the counsel said, he was prepared to concede and request the court to fix a reasonable price.

Notice to govt

The bench, meanwhile, issued notices to the provincial government and its excise and taxation department in a petition moved by three typing instructors of the defunct vocational centres of the social welfare department.

Advocate M. Nawaz Shaikh informed the bench that the petitioners were serving in Grade 8 when they were placed in the surplus pool following the closure of the vocational centres in 2001. They were absorbed as junior clerks in Grade 5 in the excise and taxation department in 2002. When they demanded absorption as senior clerks in Grade 8, they were warned that the absorption order might be withdrawn. They requested the court to restrain the respondent government and department from infringing their vested right.

Fine imposed

The Sindh High Court imposed a fine of Rs500,000 on a non-governmental organization that filed a number of writ petitions against offending builders but did not pursue them after striking deals with them out of court.

A division bench consisting of Justices Mrs Qaiser Iqbal and Syed Mahmood Alam Rizvi directed the SHC office not to entertain any new petition moved by the ‘Association for the Rights of Karachiites’, the delinquent NGO, till payment of the costs. The bench found that the NGO had not complied with an earlier order for payments of costs amounting to Rs 50,000 in another petition. Saifullah Khan Yusufzai, Zafar Mughal and Jamil Akhtar Bhutto, president, vice-president and secretary-general of the NGO, and all other office-bearers and members were asked to share the payment. The Sindh Bar Council vice-chairman was asked to personally look into the conduct of the NGO’s counsel, Pervez Ahmed Qureshi.

The matter was brought to the notice of the bench by Karachi Building Control Authority counsel Shahid Jamil Khan in a petition heard by it. He alleged that the NGO was operating ‘as a gang of blackmailers’ only to make money by abusing the judicial process. He cited a number of petitions moved by the NGO without being pursued. The KBCA counsel also said the petitioner organization had previously been fined but defaulted on payment yet its petitions were entertained.

The bench called for the record of the petitions. The record revealed that as many as 21 petitions were moved by the NGO between 2003 and 2007. Most of the petitions were dismissed for non-prosecution as the petitioner office-bearers and their counsel were absent when the petitions came up for hearing on subsequent dates. The court held in certain cases that the petitions were either not filed bona fide or were motivated.

The bench observed after dealing with the record of 20 petitions that the NGO seldom pressed its petition and settled matters with the respondent builders out of court after initial hearing. The bench regretted that ‘it is extremely unfortunate that advocates of this court are involved with the delinquent NGO’. In one petition, the counsel for the NGO was avoiding receiving notice. The conduct of the NGO and its office-bearers and counsel warrant exemplary costs, the bench observed, and imposed a fine of Rs500,000 on the NGO.