LAHORE, Aug 3: Justice Muhammad Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court on Thursday censured the Lesco Baghbanpura division sub-divisional officer for illegally removing meters and suspending electricity supply to a house and a shop in Shalamar Town.

Observing that the act of suspending power supply was unlawful and a blatant violation of fundamental rights, the court asked the SDO why a criminal case should not be registered against him for denying a law-abiding family the legitimate use of electricity in this hot and humid weather for two days.

The court warned the SDO when he confessed that the family had not defaulted in the payment of electricity dues even for a month.

To a court question, the SDO submitted that power to the home and the shop would be restored within a few hours and the meters removed by the sub-division staff would be reinstalled before the end of the day.

The court was proceeding in a writ petition through which Maqsood Ahmad had submitted that the power supply to his ancestral home and his shop was disrupted under the orders of the executive engineer and the SDO, though the payment of bills was up to date till the last month.

The petitioner submitted that his father, Mehr Muhammad Jahangir, defaulted in the payment of Rs4.7 million electricity charges for his steel industry in the area. He was arrested first in 1998 and remained behind bars for 40 days and then for 10 days in 2001 on the charge of non-payment of dues.

He submitted that his father felt the humiliation so deeply that he first suffered a heart attack of which he eventually died in 2003.

According to the petitioner, his father had sold the industry and paid debt before he had died. Later, he and four of his brothers started living with their grandfather. He also had a shop for the family’s livelihood. He stated that the employees of the Lesco sub-division came to their home the other day and removed the power meter. The next day, the staff repeated this illegal act at his shop.

Responding to another court question, the SDO submitted that Maqsood’s father, and not Maqsood himself, was a defaulter. The court observed that the default of the father was a story of the past and the petitioner could not be punished for his father’s offence. The court disposed of the writ petition as having borne fruit.