LAHORE: The National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Nepra) has rejected a review petition challenging imposition of a hefty fine of Rs10 million on the National Transmission and Despatch Company (NTDC) for supplying of 650MW electricity to K-Electric without execution of the power purchase agreement and approval of tariff from the authority.

Earlier on Jan 25 this year, the regulator had issued show-cause notice besides imposing a fine of Rs10m on the NTDC. However, the company challenged the authority’s decision during first week of February and later submitted additional grounds/arguments for incorporating these in the main review petition on March 19.

“The authority considered the submissions of the petitioner company which were advanced in the hearing as well as in the review application. The authority noted that the submissions made by the petitioner do not fulfil the requirement of regulations 3(2) of Nepra (Review Procedure) Regulations, 2009, as the petitioner has failed to point out discovery of new and important matter of evidence or point out any mistake or error apparent on the face of the record in the impugned decision and no other sufficient reasons have been submitted, which warrant review of the impugned decision,” read Nepra’s decision announced on Tuesday (July 17).

The authority said the submissions made in the instant review proceedings were the same submissions which were made in reply to the show-cause notice by the petitioner.

The said submissions were duly considered and discussed upon in the impugned decision, therefore, there is no need to discuss and elaborate upon them in the review proceedings again. “In view of the above discussion, the instant review application is hereby dismissed and the impugned decision of Jan 25 is upheld,” the regulator announced.

The authority said its decision shall dispose of the application for review (review application) filed by the NTDC against the January 25, 2018 decision of the authority in the matter of show-cause notice issued to the NTDC regarding sale of electric power of K-Electric Ltd without approval of tariff from Nepra and without execution of a Power Purchase Agreement in this respect.

The petitioner, being aggrieved of the impugned decision, filed review application on February 1 pursuant to the Nepra (Fines) Rules, 2002.

Published in Dawn, July 21st, 2018