KARACHI: The Sindh High Court has dismissed an appeal of the K-Electric seeking from the provincial government the cost of relocation of its underground electric cables for reconstruction of a road in North Nazimabad.

A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Shafi Siddiqui turned down the intra-court appeal of the power utility filed against the order of a single-judge bench handed down in December.

The division bench upheld the order of single bench saying that the appeal was found to be devoid of merit.

It noted that the appellant remained duly entitled to agitate its monetary claim in the suit, but no case had been made out to restrain the infrastructure development project with respect to the road in the interregnum.

SHC maintains order of single-judge bench

“It is gleaned from the impugned order that the learned single judge apportioned greater weightage to the public interest of completion of the civic infrastructural project as opposed to the claim of a corporate entity seeking to secure an amount that it may become entitled to, should the final determination of the suit be rendered in its favour,” it added.

The KE in its appeal submitted that the provincial government was re-constructing a road on Shahrah-i-Noor Jahan from Abdullah College to Qalandria Chowk near North Nazimabad and in September the project director had asked the power utility to relocate underground electric cables.

Citing the chief secretary, secretary of the local government department and others as respondents, the appellant further argued that the estimated cost of relocating such cables was around Rs390.8 million and the KE had asked the authorities concerned to pay the same and to stop construction of the road until the payment was made.

The lawyer for the power utility submitted that the KE filed suit before a single-judge bench and since the respondents continued with construction thereby damaging underground cables and thus it had pleaded for an interim restraining order to stop carpeting of the road, but the same was turned down.

Earlier, the single-judge bench in its order had said that the power utility placed nothing on record to demonstrate that the electric cables had been laid by it pursuant to any plan or approval duly granted under the Electricity Act, 1910.

Published in Dawn, March 23rd, 2023