Justice Shahid Waheed of the LHC issued the notices on a petition filed by Gohar Nawaz Sindhu.Sindhu said there had been an acute shortage of petroleum in the province since January 14. He said the Pakistan State Oil had mishandled the supply of petroleum products.“PSO has not paid its dues to the Ministry of Petroleum which is why citizens have to suffer a fuel shortage.”He said the PSO had to pay the ministry Rs200 billion but had only paid Rs17 billion. Citizens have had to bear the brunt of PSO’s mismanagement, he said.“The fuel shortage has affected every citizen in the province,” he said. Their right to free movement, guaranteed under Article 15 the Constitution, had been violated, said the petitioner.“I live in Johar Town and practice at the LHC. Because of the unavailability of petrol, I had a very hard time reaching the courts. Isn’t this obstruction of justice?” He requested the court to ensure that necessary action was taken to provide citizens petroleum on priority.The situation in the city worsened as petrol was unavailable at most fuel stations for the third day. Long queues were seen at fuel stations that were selling petrol.Separate queues of cars and motorcycles choked traffic on several roads where petrol pumps were open for business.Several citizens tried to approach petrol stations to buy petroleum for backup generators but were turned away. While almost every vehicle owner sought to fill up his or her fuel tank, gas stations only sold five litres to cars and one litre to motorcycles.“We can’t run our cars on compressed natural gas, there isn’t any...petrol is the only fuel available and I have to wait in a mile-long queue for a few litres,” said Abdul Ghafoor, an irate car owner. “I’ve been waiting for more than two hours... we don’t even know when this shortage will end.”A petrol station manager wishing to remain unnamed said most of the petrol pumps in the city did not follow the rule of keeping a 20-day stock.“This is why we have limited petrol stores for commuters...many of them are buying in panic and we expect the remaining stocks to run out soon.”Pakistan Petroleum Dealers’ Association say there are around 3,500 petrol pumps in Lahore which sell around three million litres of petrol daily. At present, only 10 per cent of them are selling fuel. Privately operated pumps have been closed since the crisis began. The association said the shortage was likely to continue till Sunday and the situation will improve from Monday.Published in The Express Tribune, January 17, 2015.