Court won't interfere with petroleum deregulation

Making it clear that it will not go into the policy mechanism of deregulation, the Supreme Court on Friday declined to entertain a public interest writ petition questioning the repeated hike in the price of petroleum products.

Chief Justice S.H. Kapadia told counsel Upamanyu Hazarika, appearing for the All-India Youth Federation, “We cannot decide on pricing. It is a policy and legislative matter. We will not interfere in it. The court will not engage itself in petroleum prices which are administered. How will judicial review lie in the fixation of prices of petroleum products?”

Fresh petition

When counsel said there should be a regulator, the CJI said: “You [petitioner] are proceeding on an entirely different basis than what is sought in the petition. A different aspect has been brought before us orally.” When the Bench declined to entertain this PIL, counsel said he would file a fresh petition for the other prayer. The petitioner, represented by its general secretary P. Sandosh Kumar, said there was no rationale in replacing the Administered Pricing Mechanism with the Import Parity Pricing System to reduce under-recoveries. The oil marketing companies were benefited by this system and thereby the ordinary citizens were looted.

The federation said the government could regulate the prices effectively avoid further burden to the ordinary people who are largely consuming petrol and other oil products.