PHC stays collection of surcharges on electricity bills

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) on Thursday stayed the collection of four different surcharges on the electricity bills from industrial and domestic power consumers in the province.
A two-member bench comprising Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Irshad Qaiser issued the stay order on a writ petition against the collection of different surcharges filed by around 528 users of Pakistan Textile Mills Association, CNG filling stations and other domestic users. The court also issued notices to Nepra, Pesco and Central Power Purchasing Agency (CPPA) to submit their replies before the next hearing.
Counsels for the petitioners, Shumail Ahmad Butt and Qazi Ghulam Dastagir, submitted before the bench that industrial units and domestic users were currently paying four types of surcharges in their electricity bills including charges for the Neelum-Jhelum hydropower plant, debt, fix (repair) and equalisation. They submitted that the surcharges were implemented under Section 31 (5) of the Nepra Act.
Section 31 of the Nepra Act states: “Each distribution company shall pay the federal government such surcharges as the federal government, from time to time, may notify in respect of each unit of electric power sold to consumers and any amount paid under this subsection shall be considered as a cost incurred by the distribution company to be included in the tariff determined by the authority.”
The lawyers submitted that the section 31 was included in the act through Finance Bill 2008, which was declared as illegal. They pointed out that according to the law, the distribution companies could not impose surcharges on consumers and the matter needs approval from the Council of Common Interests (CCI).
The petitioners’ lawyers stated that the Nepra’s call for imposing these surcharges on consumers to repay loans was unlawful and secondly the users were never informed of these surcharges collected in the electricity bills.
The petitioners stated that according to the government, equalisation surcharges were imposed for line losses, but it was illegal to take the same from those consumers who have been regularly paying their monthly bills.
They claimed that no-one knew where these surcharges were being spent, but it seems like a tax charged only by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government. They said the provincial government did not take the required approval from the parliament to impose the four surcharges.
They submitted that the Lahore High Court had suspended these surcharges in Punjab province on December 8, 2012 after declaring them illegal.The petitioners requested the court to declare the collection of these surcharges in the KP as illegal and unconstitutional.