Magistrate’s verdict: L’ecole school owner put on one-year probation

School declared guilty of power theft since 2009.

KARACHI:

A prominent Defence Housing Authority school, L’ecole for Advanced Studies, was declared guilty of power theft by the court in a long-impending case since 2009. The owner has been given a one-year probation period, said the Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) in a news statement issued on Saturday. 

South district judicial magistrate Mumtaz Ali Solangi has put the convicted school owner, Major (retd) Tariq Jamil, on a one-year probation period and asked them to visit the office of the probation officer after he was proven guilty.

Earlier on August 27 in 2009, the school, located on Khayaban-e-Shaheen, in Defence Phase VIII, was booked for having an illegal electricity connection for several years without applying to the KESC for the connection. Resultantly, the utility company raided the premises of the school.



Subsequently, an FIR under Section 39 of the Electricity Act was registered against the utility consumer and owner of the school, Major (retd) Jameel.

The police had stated in the FIR that the school owner had been using an old fake meter with an illegal underground cable connected to the KESC’s main supply line through a nearby mosque, stealing electricity worth millions of rupees.

Meanwhile, the KESC had imposed a penalty worth Rs6 million on the school after they had the illegal connection disconnected and the underground cable, which was almost 190-feet-long, was impounded as evidence.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 19^th, 2014.