Supreme Court to hear plea against reopening ethanol allocation for 2025-26

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court Monday agreed to hear on Wednesday a plea by an oil marketing company (OMC) claiming that the Karnataka high court’s recent order directing the reopening of ethanol allocation for 2025-26, which has already been concluded and implemented, would destabilise the national policy of 20% ethanol blending for petrol. Challenging HC’s order directing OMCs to consider enhancement of ethanol allocation to VINP Distilleries and Sugars, attorney general R Venkataramani requested a bench of Justices M M Sundresh and Sheel Nagu for an urgent hearing on Bharat Petroleum’s plea, which pointed out that the ethanol supply contracts were concluded in Oct 2025. Venkataramani said the ethanol allocation exercise attained finality on Oct 17, 2025, and allocations were communicated to 378 suppliers for a total supply of 1,050 crore litres of ethanol, of which 680 crore litres had already been supplied by them by June 18. If one supplier’s quota was enhanced, other similarly placed suppliers would claim parity, thus opening the floodgates for litigation and putting the supply chain in complete disarray, he said. Bharat Petroleum is the industry coordinator for ethanol blended petrol (EBP) programme for the 20% blending target for petrol, for which cumulative offers for supply of 1,759 crore litres were received pursuant to a tender notice. It allocated procurement quantities to various suppliers for a total of 1,048 crore litres of ethanol. Challenging VINP’s claim for supply of 9.9 crore litres of ethanol as against the allocation for supply of 3.92 crore litres, the petitioner OMC said the private supplier cannot claim an absolute right to supply ethanol based on its designed production capacity, to the detriment of other suppliers, as allocations have been made to vendors in almost all states without any discriminatory treatment.