KARACHI: The Sindh High Court on Monday reserved its order on a plea against the K-Electric for alleged excessive billing and unannounced prolonged loadshedding across the city after hearing concluding arguments of the petitioners’ counsel.

Headed by Justice Irfan Saadat Khan, a two-judge bench also expressed grave displeasure over the failure of the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to keep a vigilant eye on the power utility’s alleged malpractices during the hearing before it reserved the order to a date to be later pronounced by the court’s office.

Justice Khan remarked that Nepra seemed to be not willing to take action against the power utility. “Had the regulator authority performed its responsibility, the petitioner would not have to approach the court”, he snapped.

Petitioners’ counsel Advocate Faisal Siddiqui in his concluding arguments submitted that the power utility was legally bound to provide electricity to the consumers without any discrimination.

He argued that if there was power theft by some consumers in a locality, the whole population of the vicinity should not be punished by resorting to loadshedding to minimise the KE’s losses.

Advocate Siddiqui said that the KE instead of taking action against the power thieves was carrying out loadshedding to minimise its losses.

He pointed out that the Supreme Court in 2014 had directed the power utility not to resort to loadshedding in Ramazan and the KE was violating the apex court’s order by still carrying out loadshedding as 80 per cent of the city plunged into darkness during sehri timings.

The petitions against the power utility were initially filed over the deaths caused by the heatwave two years ago by civil rights campaigners late Rana Faizul Hasan, singer Shahzad Roy, Karamat Ali, Nazim Fida Hussain Haji and others.

The petitioners said over 1,000 people lost their lives and over 40,000 people were affected by the heatwave in Karachi and other parts of the province.

They sought enforcement of the fundamental rights and the law for the victims, the survivors and their families.

The petitioner asked the court to declare that the victims and their families and the heatstroke patients were entitled, as a fundamental right under the Constitution, to demand an appropriate compensation from the provincial and federal governments as well as from the power utility.

They also asked for the constitution of a judicial commission, headed by a retired judge of the high court or the Supreme Court and comprising relevant and respected civil society persons.

Jamaat-i-Islami also becomes intervener in the case

The petitioners submitted that the KE did not provide proper electricity to consumers yet issued excessive bills. Nepra has consistently been failed to restrain KE from this illegal act. The minister for water & power directed Nepra to look into this matter by setting new tariff and pay excessive amount back to the consumers but the regulatory body is not willing to perform its duty in a lawful manner by taking action against the KE, they maintained.

They impleaded the federal water & power secretary, law secretary, Sindh chief secretary, energy department secretary, National Accountability Bureau chairman, Federal Investigation Agency director general, Nepra chairman, KE head, and Shanghai Electric Power head as respondents.

The petitioners requested the court to form a judicial commission which will be assigned to probe the allegation levelled by them as they contended that it was the only way to save the consumers from excessive billings.

They urged that only proper investigation can help and protect the innocent consumers from the illegal act of KE.

Meanwhile, city chief of the Jamaat-i-Islami Hafiz Naeem-ur-Rehman also moved the SHC for becoming an intervener in the litigation against the KE’s malpractices.

He submitted that the people of the city were facing a great deal of hardship due to unannounced loadshedding, especially in Ramazan.

Sharjeel’s protective bail extended

A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Junaid Ghaffar, extended till May 31 the protective bail granted to PPP leader and former provincial information minster Sharjeel Inam Memon and others in a multi-billion rupees corruption reference.

The former minister along with the then provincial information secretary, Zulfiqar Shalwani, deputy director of information department Anita Baloch and others has been booked for allegedly committing corruption in 2013-15 in awarding advertisements of the provincial government’s awareness campaigns in electronic media involving over Rs5.74 billion.

Published in Dawn, May 30th, 2017