LAHORE, Aug 7: The Lahore High Court chief justice on Tuesday remarked that public protest was a natural reaction to unannounced electricity loadshedding.

Chief Justice Umar Ata Bandial said if 18-hour loadshedding was carried out in a city like Lahore, the citizens would have no reason to sit at homes silently.

The chief justice was hearing a petition against electricity loadshedding during Sehr, Iftar and prayers (Taraveeh) timings. Judicial Activism Panel Chairman Advocate Azhar Siddique filed the petition.

During the course of the hearing, the CJ expressed his grave concern over unscheduled power outages in the country. “People will definitely take to the street if they are deprived of electricity and water as well in summer season,” Bandial observed.

He said the authorities sitting in air-conditioned rooms could not feel the miseries of commoners. The government had intensified the miseries of the people by exempting VVIPs from loadshedding, he added.

The CJ held that Wapda could not be allowed to adopt a discriminatory policy on load management.

Advocate Siddique argued that all government hospitals were exempted from loadshedding but last month three patients died due to outages at hospitals. He said Bahria Town housing society in Lahore was also exempted from loadshedding in violation of Articles 9 and 25 of the Constitution. When asked by the court, counsel for Wapda sought time to file reply to the effect.

The petitioner further pointed out that in a case about Neelum Jhelum Project (NJP) pending before the high court, the government had taken a plea that no work was being done on the project. But on the other hand more than Rs26 billion had been collected from public by levying surcharge in electricity bills, he added.

The CJ adjourned further hearing till Aug 17 and summoned from Pepco six-month record of loadshedding schedule, criteria of granting exemption from outages, and details of steps, if any, taken to create awareness among the masses about the power outages schedule.

The chief justice also directed the federal government to apprise about problems (including financial constraints) being faced by it in production of electricity and submit a detailed report about money earned through electricity bills and its subsequent use. In this case, the court had already directed the federal government and Pakistan Electric Power Company (Pepco) to carry out equitable electricity loadshedding across the country.

It had been submitted in the petition that Punjab was being subjected to discrimination and given less electricity share.

The petitioner said in other provinces, electricity theft was rampant with low bill recovery. He said non-recovery of bills from other provinces affected power production.

The petitioner said despite announcement made by the power minister, citizens of Punjab had been facing severe loadshedding not only during Sehr and Iftar but throughout the day.

He said the failure in supplying electricity during Ramazan was violation of fundamental rights as envisaged in the Constitution under Articles 9, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 19-A, 23, 24 and 25.