Fuel Price Fixation Not In Sc Domain

NEW DELHI: Whatever the public angst and suffering over the spiralling petrol prices, the Supreme Court on Friday said it would never enter into the price fixation sphere and question the government about the mechanism in fixing the selling price of motor fuel.

Dismissing a PIL filed by the All India Youth Federation, a bench of Chief Justice S H Kapadia and Justices A K Patnaik and Swatanter Kumar said that the SC in a judgment several years ago had banned judicial review of any price fixation mechanism adopted by the government.

The petitioner's counsel and senior advocate Upamanyu Hazarika said the other grievance of the petitioner was that though the government has set up the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, it has not entrusted it with the power to monitor or fix the price of petrol or diesel. The bench said the oral arguments of the counsel did not match the pleadings in the writ petition and asked the petitioners to withdraw his plea and file a fresh one.