PESHAWAR: Three residents of Mardan district have moved the Peshawar High Court against the ‘inflated’ electricity bills due to a levy of hefty amounts on account of fuel price adjustment (FPA) and requested it to declare those excessive charges illegal and unconstitutional.

Sajjad Ali and two other petitioners claimed that the consumers of Peshawar Electric Supply Company (Pesco) had received highly inflated electricity bills this month with the FPA, which was almost two times more than the original bill of the consumption of electricity.

They stated that the cost of electricity was much lesser in the bills then the FPA which was added to the original bills.

They have also sought interim relief from the court requesting to suspend imposition of FPA in the monthly bills till final disposal of the petition.

The respondents in the petition are the Wapda chairman, its general manager (operation), Pesco managing director, secretary of the power division, and chairman of the Pesco board of directors.

In the petition filed through lawyers Noor Alam Khan and Shabina Noor, the petitioners insisted that if a consumer had consumed electricity to the tune of Rs2,000, they had received electricity bill of Rs4,500, including Rs2,500 as FPA.

They also attached several electricity bills with their petition.

The petitioners claimed that the infuriated consumers had been visiting Pesco offices of different sub-divisions with their inflated bills, but to no avail.

They said the consumers had also been staging protests wherein they had been demanding of the government to reduce the FPA tax as that was an injustice with the consumers.

The petitioners said the protests led the closure of roads and disruption of traffic inconveniencing motorists and commuters.

They said charging the people excessively instead of the actual cost of power consumption was an unconstitutional act on part of the government.

The petitioners said the issuance of inflated bills was a violation of fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution and it was in the domain of the high court to check such unconstitutional acts.

Published in Dawn, December 31st, 2021