PESHAWAR: A Peshawar High Court bench on Thursday suspended until further orders the federal government’s recent notification of amending the rules of business to place the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority under the administrative control of the power division.

Justice Qaiser Rasheed and Justice Ijaz Anwer gave 15 days to the respondents, including secretaries of power and cabinet divisions, to respond to the petition of Senator Nauman Wazir, who challenged the Sept 19 notification, which amended the rules of business to give the power division the control of Nepra.

The bench ordered the fixing of the petition for hearing after a month.

Earlier, the petitioner had challenged a memorandum issued by the Cabinet Division on Dec 19, 2016, in respect of the transfer of the administrative control of different regulatory authorities and more particularly Nepra to the water and power division.

Seeks federal govt’s reply to PTI senator’s petition against its order in this respect

The court later suspended the memorandum. The petition has been pending decision since then.

In the petition, the lawmaker, who is the PTI parliamentary leader the Senate, has requested the high court to declare illegal and unconstitutional the impugned notification of Sept 13, 2017, wherein amendments were made to Schedule II of the Rules of Business, 1973, and the administrative control of the Nepra had been given to the power division.

The petitioner’s lawyer, Shumail Ahmad Butt, said the government’s previous move to place Nepra under the control of water and power division was resisted by his client and that the high court had suspended that memorandum.

He added that the said memorandum was also challenged in the Lahore High Court and Islamabad High Court with the latter declaring it illegal afterwards.

Mr Shumail said the water and power ministry was disgruntled by the consumer-friendly decisions of Nepra and that its secretary had told the prime minister that Nepra was a stumbling block and therefore, it should be tamed.

He said the matters about regulatory bodies, especially Nepra, the power regulator, fell in the domain of the Council of Common Interest.

The lawyer said the impugned decision without the approval of the CCI was a glaring violation of articles 153 and 154 of the Constitution read with the Fourth Schedule appended therewith

The lawyer said in its present scheme in the Nepra Act, 1997, there are numerous instances when federal government represented by ministry of water and power was a direct party in proceedings before the Nepra.

He added that when the Nepra was placed under the direct administrative control of the same ministry, it would not only give birth to serious instances of conflict of interest but also there would invariably be situations where Nepra would act both as adjudicator and the party in the same cause.

The lawyer said the Supreme Court recently held in the Mustafa Impex case that the federal government meant the cabinet and therefore, any legislation to the contrary assigning the role of the federal government to any other body, which in the instant case was the power division, was in conflict with the Constitution.

Published in Dawn, October 13th, 2017