Delhi High Court: The Division Bench of Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, CJ and Anish Dayal, J, passed an interim order stating that the petitioners are not required to seek registration under the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (Registration for Establishing and Operating the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Terminals) Regulations, 2025 (PNGRB Regulations), and no coercive actions will be taken against them for the same.
Petitioners 1 and 2 averred that since they have been operating and establishing LNG terminals since 2004 and 2007 respectively, they would be covered by the proviso appended to Section 15(1) of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act, 2006 (Act), which exempts LNG terminals established or operating before the ‘appointed date’ from mandatory registration.
The Court noted that the only requirement under the proviso to Section 15(1) of the Act is that the entities shall inform the Board of their activities within 6 months from the ‘appointed date’. The ‘appointed date’ has been defined under Section 2(c) of the Act as the date on which the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (Board) was established. The Court further noted that the Board under Section 3(1) of the Act was established on 25-6-2007 and accordingly opined that, prima facie, the petitioners’ LNG terminals were not required to seek registration under the terms of Section 15(1) of the Act.
By way of an interim measure, the Court also directed that no coercive steps shall be taken if the entities do not seek registration.
The matter has been listed for 9-10-2025
[Petronet LNG Ltd. v. Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board, WP (C) No. 8891 of 2025, decided on 3-7-2025]
Advocates who appeared in this case :
For the Petitioner: Parag Tripathi (Senior Advocate), Saurav Agrawal, Trinath Tadakamalla, Nisha Bhatia, Jewer Bhateja, Anshuman Chaudhry, Prachi Dubey, Shivam, Astha Gaur, Advocates
For the Respondents: K.M. Nataraj (ASGI), Rakesh Kumar (CGSC), Vedansh Anand (GP), Sanyat Lodha, Sanskriti Bhardwaj, Suyash Gaur, Harshita Tomar, Vinayak, Yashika Bhardwaj, Sunil, Advocates
