A division bench of Supreme Court (SC) on Wednesday reserved its verdict in Rental Power Projects (RPPs) case, declaring that instead of a short order the court would announce a detailed judgement. The bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Khilji Arif Hussain has been hearing petitions filed by federal minister Faisal Saleh Hayat and PML-N MNA Khwaja Asif, alleging corruption in award of the RPPs contracts.
During the course of hearing, counsel for Pepco Khawaja Tariq Rahim informed the bench that upon determination form Nepra, outstanding amount of fuel price would be paid to Reshma Power Project. Earlier, the counsel for Reshma power Project, Abdul Hafeez Pirzada apprised the bench that the project had not been receiving fuel price, which he said was mandatory for electricity generation.
Concluding his remarks, the counsel for Karkey RPP, Akram Sheikh, said that as per the accord Karkey was bound to supply 231 MW power whereas total capacity of the plant was to generate 330 MW in case fuel supply was made by the government. On the occasion, the CJP inquired from Sheikh to produce any document to substantiate his contention that supply of fuel to the RPP was government''s job. The counsel replied that it had been described in Regenerative Fuel Cell (RFC), which was an amended form of Request for Proposals (RFP).
Submitting synopsis and rebuttal before the bench, Khawaja M. Asif contended that one party was given six RPPs. According to him, this fact was acknowledged by the counsel for Walter Power. He added that despite having the experience of Bhiki, the government still awarded six RPPs to same party. He further said that in the case of Bhiki the rental agreement was for one year whereas gas supply agreement was for nine months. He added that power worth $137 million was supplied against a paid-up amount of $217 million.
Asif also argued that Nepra being the regulatory authority mandated with a task to oversee the power sector, appeared to be abysmally absent in the decision-making process on the subject matter and on appropriate inquiries. He was of the view that PPRA rules were also violated by PPIB in all awards for RPPs. The bench reserved the judgement in the case, stating that it had been hearing the case for six months. Hence, the need for a detailed judgement.