KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has suspended the impugned notifications and orders of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority’s (Nepra) appellate tribunal regarding the review of K-Electric’s multi-year tariff.

A single-judge bench of the SHC, headed by Justice Mohammad Abdur Rah­man, also issued notices to the Power Division, Nepra and others, as well as the deputy attorney general, for Oct 15.

The power utility has approached the SHC challenging the judgements of Nepra’s appellate tribunal handed down in September this year and October 2025. These judg­ements concerned KE’s appeals against Nepra’s October 2025 review determinations and the subsequent notifications issued by the power regulator and the Ministry of Energy (Power Division).

Ayan Memon, counsel for the power utility, argued that KE’s tariff, which was determined by Nepra, was subject to a seven-year period from 2024 to 2030, covering generation, distribution and transmission.

‘Suo motu powers’

He further noted that although review petitions were subsequently filed, Nepra deemed them non-maintainable.

The authority asserted that it could exercise “suo motu powers” to review and vary each of the separate tariff determinations previously established.

The lawyer added that while appeals were filed before the appellate tribunal in Islamabad, it upheld Nepra’s findings, which was why the matter was now being agitated before the SHC.

He maintained that the tariffs were determined afresh instead of reviewing the order and that this was contrary to a Supreme Court judgement, as information could not come from other parties.

He also argued that the determination passed the entire burden of the subsidy being paid to KE back to the power utility, which would further pass it on to consumers through fuel adjustment.

He maintained that Nepra possessed the right of review, which was not tantamount to a right to re-determine the tariff. He further argued that the tariff could not be determined based on criteria established by the power regulator and appellate tribunal, as doing so exceeded their jurisdiction.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2026