LAHORE, July 29: The Lahore High Court ruled on Tuesday that Wapda could not apply commercial rates of electricity to residential areas.

Justice Fakhrun Nisa Khokhar made this observation while directing Wapda to reverse it decision regarding the electricity supply to residents of Ayub Agricultural Research Institute staff colony of Faisalabad at commercial rates. Residents of the staff colony had challenged the decision of trial court through which it had validated the decision of Wapda.

The LHC set aside the verdict of trial court on grounds that employees of the institute were domestic consumers and according to the prevalent law they were to be treated on a par with residents of the adjacent colonies, who were billed at domestic rates. The court restrained the respondent from charging the petitioners commercial rates and recovering arrears from them on this account.

While touching on the merits of trial court verdict, Justice Nisa remarked that civil courts had the jurisdiction to strike down actions of an authority or department that might be in conflict with the fundamental rights of the citizens. The LHC observed that courts were bound to make the provision of fundamental rights to citizen meaningful.

It referred to Articles 4 and 25 of the 1973 Constitution which provided protection against the inequality among different classes and sections of society.

Earlier, the petitioner’s counsel argued that it was a recognised practice all over the world that any person making use of a facility for domestic purposes couldn’t be charged differently from those already paying for the facility at domestic rates. The counsel argued that authorities like Wapda, Wasa and SNGPL had prescribed separate tariffs for domestic and commercial consumers and it was the right of every consumer to be charged domestic rates for consuming electricity for domestic purposes.

The Wapda counsel had refuted these submissions on grounds that charging the petitioner domestic rates would cause a heavy loss to Wapda as other consumers currently paying their bills at commercial rates would demand the same facility. He submitted that since the electricity was being supplied to the institute on commercial basis, the residents of its staff colony could not be charged domestic rates.