Law: National Electric and Power Regulatory Authority Act, (XL of 1997)

Section: 45, 7, 2, 3 6-11

 SUMMARY The petitioners challenged concurrent dismissal of their civil suit seeking regulation of electricity load-shedding in Kohat, alleging excessive and discriminatory 18-hour outages in violation of an 8-hour urban schedule. The Civil Court dismissed the suit for lack of jurisdiction, and the Appellate Court upheld the decision. In revision, the High Court held that disputes relating to load-shedding schedules, distribution policies, and consumer grievances fall exclusively within the regulatory domain of NEPRA under the NEPRA Act, 1997, and are to be addressed through its statutory complaint mechanism rather than Civil Courts. Finding no jurisdictional error or illegality in the concurrent judgments, the revision petition was dismissed, with liberty to approach NEPRA. TAGLINE “Load-shedding disputes lie in NEPRA’s exclusive regulatory domain; Civil Courts lack jurisdiction due to implied statutory bar.” ORDER; Wiqar Ahmad, J.- Through this single judgment, instant Civil Revision petition is intended to be decided, which is directed against the concurrent judgments and decrees of the two courts below, whereby the suit filed by Petitioners for declaration and permanent injunction has been dismissed up to the appellate forum. Briefly stated, facts as averred in the plaint are that the petitioners, as representatives of inhabitants of Jungle Khel Urban-III & IV, Kohat, instituted a civil suit (No. 311/1 of 2016) on April 30, 2016, seeking a Decree for Declaration and Permanent-cum-Mandatory Injunction. The core grievance of the petitioners was that the respondents (CEO PESCO, Chairman WAPDA, and others) were legally bound to adhere to a fixed loadshedding schedule of 08 hours for urban areas and 12 hours for rural areas. It was alleged that the respondents were unlawfully carrying out loadshedding for up to 18 hours in the petitioners' urban locality, an act termed as discriminatory, illegal, and a violation of their fundamental rights. The respondents (Nos. 1 to 5) contested the…