PHC moved against handover of Nepra to ministry

PESHAWAR: The Peshawar High Court (PHC) was moved against a notification issued on the directives of the prime minister for transfer of administrative control of National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) to the Ministry of Water and Power.

PTI parliamentary leader in the Senate Numan Wazir filed the writ petition through his lawyer Shumail Ahmad Butt.The petitioner claimed that principal secretary to the prime minister through a notification issued on December 19, 2016 transferred the administrative control of the country’s five autonomous and independent regulatory bodies including Nepra to the ministries that were supposed under the law to watch, monitor and regulate the activities and functions of the regulatory bodies.

It was submitted that the independent and regulatory bodies have decided cases against the concerned ministries and the government now made these bodies subservient to the ministries.It was pointed out that due to Nepra decisions in the over-billing of Wapda, about Rs50 billion overbills were reduced for the consumers and that was why the federal government wanted to control the body.

“Pursuant to Article 153 of the Constitution, the Council of Common Interests (CCI) was established and Article 154(1) as amended provided that the Council shall formulate and regulate policies in relation to matters in Part-II of the Federal Legislative list and shall exercise supervision and control over related institutions,” the petition stated.

It added that under Part-II of the Federal Legislative list enumerated in the Fourth Schedule of the Constitution, entries 2, 3 and 4 related to gas, petroleum and electricity were matters exclusively to be controlled and regulated by the CCI.

It pointed out that entry 6 left no doubt relating to the control and supervision of the aforementioned regulatory bodies, wherein it is stipulated that all regulatory authorities established under the federal law shall be in the control and domain of the CCI in relation to formulation of the polices and exercise of control and supervision thereof.