LAHORE: The reconstitution of Board of Directors (BoDs) of three distribution companies (Discos) has been challenged in the court of law, said the sources.
The sources said the reconstitution of the Boards of Faisalabad, Islamabad and Lahore electric supply companies (Fesco, Iesco and Lesco) on the ground that they were constituted for a period of three years back in December 2020 by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government and the present government cannot remove them before the expiry of this period.
Reliable sources said the petition was filed by one member of Fesco Barrister Dr Irfan Chatta in the Islamabad High Court where Justice Aamer Farooq carried out preliminary hearings. However, he was not convinced to entertain the petition because no notification regarding the reconstituted BoDs has so far been issued by the federal government.
According to the sources, the court was of the view that since no notification of reconstituted BoDs has been attached to the application, therefore, the petitioner has approached the court without a proper cause of action. However, instead of issuing a notice to the federal government, the court allowed clubbing it with already filed two similar applications under litigation in the IHC.
It may be noted that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has reconstitute BoDs of Iesco, Fesco and Lesco on 12th October 2022. However, the summary is yet to be notified after the approval of the federal Cabinet through circulation.
It may further be noted that the outgoing PTI government had carried out performance evaluation back on 20th January 2022 against the targets set for the three distribution companies (Discos) at the end of 2nd quarter of FY 2021-22.
The sources said the summary approved by the prime minister had mentioned that the premier has desired to notify the reconstituted Boards after obtaining approval of the Cabinet members through circulation. However, the Ministry of Energy (Power Division) has withheld the directive, as the federal minister for energy Engr Khurram Dastgir wanted to discuss the nominations before notifying the reconstituted Boards ahead. Sources have further added that the recomposed Boards lack sufficient presence of members with engineering or power sector background.
According to sources, the earlier BoDs, constituted by the PTI government, were though showing heavy presence of former employees of K-Electric (42 in total) but still they had a background of power sector compared with the present list, which shows more political than technical nominations.
It may be noted that Ministry of Energy (Power Division) is the administrative tine Ministry for ten (10) Distribution Companies (Discos). The affairs of these Companies are governed under the provisions of the Companies Act 2017 and the Public Sector Companies (Corporate Governance) Rules, 2013 through a Board of Directors nominated by the Government of Pakistan, as per provisions of Section 165 of the Companies Act, 2017.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022