LAHORE - The Lahore High Court on Monday issued notice to Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources and others on petitions challenging imposition of cess (tax) under the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess Act 2011.
Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial also ordered the registrar office to consolidate all petitions related to the matter on next date of hearing.
M/S Malik steel re-rolling mills and 10 other petitioners had challenged the tax by making Petroleum Ministry, Oil and Gas Regulatory Authority and Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited party in the petitions.
They submitted the electricity was the main power source to run their steel mills. However, because of electricity shortage, the federation had encouraged factories and others to generate electricity through gas on self-generation basis, they submitted.
The petitioners contended that the government was duty bound to supply uninterrupted electricity to factories. They pointed out a cess of Rs13 per gas unit was imposed under the Gas Infrastructure Development Cess Act 2011, initially but later it was increased to Rs100 per MMBTU of gas. They contended the cess was illegal and unlawful; therefore, it should be set aside.
The chief justice after hearing the arguments issued notice for Nov 20 to the respondents and directed to fix other identical petitions after consolidating them.
HAMESH’S REQUEST BASELESS: An accountability court judge Nisar Baig on Monday assured the Lahore High Court (LHC) that the main accused in BoP scam, Hamesh Khan, was being trailed according to law and the request of the accused seeking transfer of the trail was baseless.
LHC Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial resumed the hearing on the petition moved by former Bank of Punjab president Hamesh Khan seeking transfer of bank loan fraud case against him to any other judge.
The petitioner through his counsel Azam Nazir Tarar alleged that the judge of the accountability court, Nisar Baig, had not been holding proceedings in the case as per the law.
The counsel argued that the accused had no hop of justice from the judge; therefore, the case should be transferred to any other judge of the accountability courts to fulfill the requisites of justice.
The accountability judge in his reply said the trail was being done as per law and there was nothing for him to act partial against the accused. He added the statements of witnesses and evidences were being recorded according to law.
The chief justice recorded the statement of the judge and deferred the hearing until November 26 asking the counsels of both the parties to come for final arguments on the case.
REPLY SOUGHT: The Lahore High Court (LHC) on Monday sought reply from the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and a PML-N MPA Shamsa Gohar on a petition moved by her husband seeking her disqualification allegedly on the ground of contracting second marriage without getting divorce from first husband.
Petitioner Gohar Sarfraz Qureshi submitted Shamsa had concealed facts at the occasion of her marriage with him. He said Shamsa contracted marriage with him in 2006 and showed her unmarried in the nikahnama (marriage certificate). He said after some time he came to know that the woman he married to was already married to a man named Abid Ali.
Petitioner said Shamsa contracted marriage with Ali on March 27, 2005 and concealed this fact at the time of nikah with him (Qureshi) solemnised on April 9, 2006. He also claimed that proof of Shamsa’s divorce with Ali was not found in the record of union council concerned. Qureshi further accused his wife of receiving millions of rupees from national exchequer under the head of TA/DA to attend sessions of the Punjab Assembly. He said Shamsa belonged to Sialkot; however, remained settled in Lahore for the last four years.
Justice Khawaja Imtiaz Ahmad heard initial arguments and issued notices to the respondents for next week.