Habibi restaurant case: Counsel asked to get advice from SNGPL

Eatery owner shows willingness for a bank grantee for restoring severed gas

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Wednesday asked the counsel for the gas utility get advice from the company regarding acceptability of bank guarantee for restoring gas connection to a restaurant.

When the case was taken up, IHC judge Aamer Farooq directed the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited’s (SNGPL) counsel to obtain instructions from the company whether it was settling the matter as the restaurant was willing to submit a bank surety for the restoration of gas supply till the main suit was decided pending in the lower court.

The chief executive of Habibi restaurant, Habibullah Zahid, has taken the SNGPL to different district courts for issuing two bills amounting to Rs12,494,760 and disconnecting gas supply to the Habibi’s I-8 Markaz outlets.

His two applications seeking interim injunction have so far been dismissed by courts but the main suit was still pending before a lower court. The payment of dues will be linked to the final decision of the main suit.

Zahid through his counsel, Abdul Khaliq Thind, has challenged the orders that ruled that the matter was of financial issue between the restaurant and the company and not a case of irreparable loss.

On December 3, 2015, a district court upheld its previous order that stated that there was no necessity to interfere in the matter.

Thind said that the whole infrastructure along with the gas and electricity metres of the restaurant was destroyed when a fire erupted on July 18, 2012 and, later on, the gas metre was replaced.

On two different occasions, the company, however, issued bills amounting to over 10 million without any justification, he argued.

The counsel for SNGPL alleged that the plaintiff did not come with clean hands and the owner has been found guilty of meter tempering on more than one occasions.

Thind prayed the court to set aside both orders of the subordinate courts and direct the respondent not to remove the installed gas meter besides asking it issue a gas bill according to the consumed units.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 7^th, 2016.