LAHORE: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday directed the federal government to submit the mechanism for fixing petroleum, oil and lubricant prices.

Earlier, hearing a public interest petition, Justice Shahid Karim observed that apparently the fuel prices in the international market were on decline but they were going up in Pakistan.

The judge directed the federal government’s counsel to tell the court on the next hearing who determined the fuel prices and under what mechanism.

Advocate Azhar Siddique of the Judicial Activism Panel filed the petition, saying the government had increased the fuel prices despite a decrease in the international market. He said the government did not pass on the benefit of reduced fuel prices to the masses despite the fact that the country was facing testing times due to massive floods.

The lawyer submitted that in the past, the Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority (Ogra) used to evaluate petroleum prices after a period of six months, later, it started changing the prices on a monthly basis and most recently, it adopted a mechanism of changing pricing fortnightly. He argued that the practice of Ogra was against the law. He said the federal government was not eager to facilitate the people who were directly suffering from the inflated fuel prices.

Mr Siddique contended that the recent increase in petroleum prices would also hike prices of other commodities, which was in violation of the fundamental rights of the people. He said the finance minister claimed that the fuel prices could not be reduced due to the programme of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The counsel asked the court to strike down the impugned notification regarding the increase in the fuel prices and order the government to pass on the benefit of reduced fuel prices to the masses.

The judge would resume further hearing on Sept 13.

Published in Dawn, September 6th, 2022