Power bills: Faisalabad-based businessmen move IHC against NAB recovery

NAB notification suspended.

ISLAMABAD:

The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Thursday restrained the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) from recovering power dues from 50 businessmen belonging to Faisalabad.

Suspending the April 2 notification by NAB, the division bench, comprising Chief Justice Muhammad Anwar Khan Kasi and Justice Noorul Haq N Qureshi, stopped the bureau from recovering power dues from the petitioners.

The petitioners are challenging the recovery of fuel adjustment charges through the NAB.

The Ministry of Water and Power, the Water and Power Development Authority chairman, the Faisalabad Electricity Supply Company (FESCO), the NAB chairman, Fesco revenue officers and executive engineer have been named as respondents.

The court issued notices to the respondents and sought their comments in two weeks.

Advocate Muhammad Nawaz, counsel for the petitioners, argued that on March 21, 2013, the IHC had declared the fuel adjustment charges illegal and unconstitutional.

Fesco had referred the matter to NAB and requested coercive recovery.

Nawaz said that NAB had served notices to the consumers on April 3 calling them defaulters despite the fact that IHC had granted a stay order in the matter.

He said that Fesco had appealed the verdict before the same court, but the matter was still pending.

He said NAB could not recover the amount unless the appeal was accepted. He said that the petitioners had replied to NAB notices, but it had ignored them.

The counsel argued that NAB’s declaring his clients was illegal and was a vilation of the Article 10-A of the Constitution that protected the rights of the consumer.

He requested the court to declare the recovery drive illegal.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 12^th, 2013.