Ahmedabad: The Gujarat high court on Thursday directed the Centre to file an affidavit in a week’s time explaining why the court should not take punitive action against responsible persons for noncompliance of its order to supply CNG to Ahmedabad at a rate supplied to Mumbai and Delhi. On July 25 last year, the bench headed by Chief Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya ordered for conversion of all public vehicles to CNG and asked the Centre to provide gas to the city at the price at which it was supplied to metro cities. The HC also asked the Centre not to discriminate between Central PSU-supported city gas distribution (CGD) and private Gujarat-based CDGs for allocation of natural gas. Since the Centre did not implement any of these directions, advocate Amit Panchal filed contempt petition in September. The HC then had asked the Centre to explain non-compliance of its order. During the hearing on Thursday, advocate Panchal brought to court’s notice that the Centre has not challenged the HC order before the Supreme Court, as stated by the Centre in September last. The bench took notice of this and asked the Centre to file reply in a week’s time. Besides gas prices, the contempt petition claims that despite clear orders from the high court to prioritize CGDs in allocation of natural gas, the tender notice issued by ONGC invited bids for transportation of gas to Gas-based Urea Fertilisation Plants instead of CGDs.