NEW DELHI, DEC 12: Finding it difficult to auction cancelled allotments of petrol pumps, LPG and kerosene dealerships by the December 15 deadline set by the Delhi High Court, the Government and oil companies today sought four more months time from the court to comply with the directive.

The Petroleum Ministry in its application before a division bench comprising justice Y K Sabharwal and justice D K Jain said technicalities in evaluation of the allotments would take some more time, and hence, auctioning should be deferred. The bench sought a reply from the petitioner organisation, the Centre for Public Interest Litigation, and posted the application for further hearing on February six.

The bench on August 29 while cancelling 69 allotments given by former petroleum minister Satish Sharma from his discretionary quota had directed the Ministry and concerned oil companies to take over ``petrol pump premises'' or ``distributor premises'' from the allottees from December one.

The court had further directed that the right to run the petrol pumps and/or distributor-ship taken over by the Ministry or oil companies ``shall be disposed of by way of public auction to be held, if feasible, before December one''. It had sought a compliance report by December 15.

The Ministry has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against the August 29 order of the High Court, the application filed by standing counsel A K Vali and advocate Rajiv Shakdar said.

Four petroleum companies - Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan Petroleum and Indo-Burma Petroleum - have also moved a similar application before the bench seeking more time to comply with the directive.

``Public auction of the right to procure distributor-ship shall involve valuation of the said right, in order to fix the reserve price.

``The exercise of fixing reserve price involves an intricate exercise which is required to be carried by experts after taking into account various factors pertaining to each such outlet and hence, the Ministry and the oil companies have not been able to find it feasible to complete the said exercise by December one,'' the applications said.

The oil companies sought permission from the court to run the cancelled outlets on their own or on a contract basis for a limited period till their auction to prevent any difficulty arising on account of disruption of supplies in the local area where the said outlets were situated.