KARACHI: A provincial law officer has informed the Sindh High Court that despite concurrence of the chief minister to approach the Supreme Court of Pakistan, the Sindh government has so far taken no step to address the issue of gas distribution for Sindh in line with Article 158 of Constitution.

The SHC observed that the court had used its best endeavours to get enforced this aspect for benefit of the people of the province as the natural gas was not available even to make a cup of tea.

However, the two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha in its order further said that this was in essence a policy decision of the provincial government to take for benefit of the people of the province and thus bench was leaving this matter to the provincial government to act as it deem appropriate for betterment of its people vis-à-vis the command of constitution under Article 158.

According to Article 158, the areas producing natural gas have the first right over it and earlier the SHC was informed that Sindh was the largest gas producing province.

At the last hearing in March, the SHC took exception to the shortage of natural gas in Sindh even during month of Ramazan and had advised the provincial government to approach the Supreme Court again for implementation of Article 158 of the Constitution since apparently no meaningful progress was being made before Council of Common Interest in this regard.

At the outset of the hearing, an additional advocate general of Sindh placed a July 26 letter before the bench which stated that in effect the chief minister had given his concurrence to file urgent application before the Supreme Court in matters related to implementation of Article 158.

“Despite this letter being dated 26.07.2023 learned AAG has informed us that no step so far has been taken in this regard by the government of Sindh”, the bench in its order added.

It also noted that the assemblies were likely to be dissolved in a few days and a caretaker set-up would be put in place in order to manage the affairs of the province until a duly elected government was returned following the general elections.

About gasification of villages, the Sui Southern Gas Company Limited informed the bench that out of 114 villages, 86 had been provided gas or would shortly be supplied the same while work on 28 remaining villages would be started on receipt of the federal government’s share of Rs423.726 million.

However, the bench was informed that despite the last court order, the ministry of petroleum had still not provided such funds to the SSGCL.

A deputy attorney general sought 15 more days for compliance with the court order, but the bench observed that it prima facie appeared to be an attempt by the ministry to avoid making payment as it was aware of dissolution of assemblies soon.

The bench directed the secretaries of ministries of petroleum and finance to ensure provision of funds in question before Sept 11 and warned that both the secretaries would appear in person on next hearing and would also be show-caused for contempt proceedings if the compliance was not made.

Regarding progress reports filed by the deputy commissioners of several districts about utilisation of exploration and production (E&P) funds for various projects, the bench noted that some reports were satisfactory, but a number of cases of E&P funds were not being used for the purposes for which they ought to have been used while in numerous cases the quality of work was low standard.

It directed all the DCs concerned to appear in person at next hearing and provide a detailed updated progress reports.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2023