SUKKUR: The Sukkur bench of the Sindh High Court has declared that Sukkur Electric Power Company (Sepco) cannot issue detection bills to consumers without hearing them as the detection thus billed to the consumer is illegal.

The double bench comprising Justices Shafiq Siddiqui and Khadim Tunio passed the order on Wednesday on a petition filed by an electricity consumer Jalaluddin Panhiar through his lawyer advocate Nizamuddin Memon in which he had made Sepco chief executive officer, chairman of Wapda, executive and superintending engineers of Sepco operation and revenue as respondents.

The petitioner stated that the electricity consumption billed to him by Sepco also included detection charges of past four months, which amounted to more than Rs30,000. It was quite unjustified, he said.

Sepco’s counsel told the court that the petitioner had been using electricity through an illegal connection and his electricity consumption was on higher side but the meter installed at his premises showed less consumption of electricity. Besides, electricity was also being stolen forcing Sepco to charge the consumer detection units, he said.

The court said after hearing both sides that under Section 6/26 of Electricity Act, Sepco was not empowered to charge any consumer detection. The power utility could complain against the erring consumer to the electric inspector and the electric inspector would decide after hearing both sides (Sepco and the consumer) whether the detection was required to be charged or not. Besides, supply of power to any consumer could not be disconnected without hearing him or her, said the court.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2018