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Showing contexts for: SONEPAT in Gail Gas Ltd vs Petroleum & Natural Gas Regulatory ... on 26 July, 2019Matching Fragments
Per Hon'ble Mr. B. N. Talukdar, Technical Member, (Petroleum and Natural Gas)
1. GAIL Gas Ltd, the Appellant herein, has filed this appeal under Section 33 of the Petroleum & Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006 challenging the orders dated 22.05.2013 passed by the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board invoking part of the bank guarantee submitted by the Appellant in respect of the city gas distribution networks in the geographical areas of Kota, Dewas, Meerut and Sonepat. The total amount of bank guarantee invoked for the four geographical areas combined together has been Rs. 3,53,81,000/-. The bank guarantees were submitted by the Appellant against any breach by the Appellant with respect to timely commissioning of the CGD networks and meeting the service obligations. The IDBI Bank Ltd was the primary obligator undertaking the payment to the Board against any breach by the Appellant.
7. Vide letter dated 2.6.2008, the Appellant submitted expression of interest for laying, building and operating CGD networks for various cities including Kota, Sonepat, Dewas etc. Subsequently, vide letter 1/12.6.2009, the PNGRB issued letters granting authorization to the Appellant for laying, building operating or expanding CGD networks in Kota, Sonepat, Meerut and Dewas. While in Kota, Meerut and Dewas, the requirement under the authorization was creation of infrastructure for PNG domestic connections, in the case of Sonepat, the Board mentioned the criteria to number of domestic connections to be provided instead of infrastructure creation. It is the case of the Appellant that this criteria was wholly unreasonable because of the fact that it is not within the hands of the service provider to get the consumers to obtain connections and all that the service provider could have done is to ensure that the infrastructure requisite for providing the connections is laid down by it. In fact, under Section 34 of the Indian Contract Act, such a condition as laid down by the Board is void since it is contingent on the future conduct of living persons who are the consumers and who may not choose to avail of the PNG connection available in their area.
20. The Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006 was enacted on 31st March, 2006 without Section 16 which deals with Authorisation giving statutory mandate to the Board to issue authorization to entities. The Section 16 was notified by the Central Government vide notification dated 12.07.2010. As regards the authorizations under this appeal, i.e., to set up the CGD networks in the cities of Kota, Meerut, Page 22 APPEAL NO. 104 OF 2016 & IA-249, IA-250 OF 2016 Sonepat and Dewas, the same were first issued by the Board on 1/12.06.2009. Since till that time, as per the order of the Delhi High Court dated 21.01.2010 in Writ Petition Nos. 8415 of 2009 and 9022 of 2009 filed by Voice of India and Indraprastha Gas Limited, the Board did not have the power to issue authorization in absence of notification of Section 16 of the PNGRB Act, 2006, the entities approached the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (the Ministry) to grant the said authorization. Considering the order of the Delhi High Court and also the entities' bids as per the Board's selection process and their investments already carried out, the Ministry vide its order dated 29.06.2010 granted the authorisation to the Appellant for setting up of CGD network in the cities of Kota, Meerut, Dewas and Sonepat etc. The Board also in its order mentioned that the entities would be bound by the various regulations of the Board including those pertaining to inter- alia work commitments etc.
38. The Board claims that personal hearing was given to the Appellant on 16.09.2010 at 11.00 hours for the GAs of Dewas and Sonepat which the Appellant has not brought to the notice of APTEL. We have gone through the letter dated 07.09.2010 issued by the Board to the Appellant on Dewas GA asking the Appellant to appear before the Board's Committee and found that this letter was served as a Notice for hearing under Regulation 16(1)(a) of the Authorisation Regulations.
39. We have also observed that the Board issued another notice vide letter dated 16.03.2012 to the Appellant under Section 23 of the PNGRB Act, 2006 and Regulation 16 of the Authorisation Regulations for the GAs of Kota, Dewas, Sonepat and Meerut for hearing on 29.03.2012 at 2.30 pm. The Board claims that this personal hearing was given to the Appellant on the said date of 29.03.2012. We have observed that this notice also has not been referred to in the appeal.