SHC slams KE, NEPRA over Karachi’s power crisis

The Sindh High Court has strongly criticized K-Electric and NEPRA over prolonged and unannounced electricity load-shedding in Karachi

The Sindh High Court has strongly criticized K-Electric and NEPRA over prolonged and unannounced electricity load-shedding in Karachi. The court was hearing a petition filed by Jamaat-e-Islami against power outages in the city.

During the proceedings, officials from both K-Electric and NEPRA appeared before the bench. Justice Faisal Kamal expressed deep concern, saying that despite the year being 2025, even a slight rainfall causes power cuts lasting up to three hours.

He questioned K-Electric’s performance since its privatization. The court asked what improvements K-Electric had made to its infrastructure and utility services over the years.

Justice Faisal further criticized NEPRA’s inaction and asked what the regulatory body was doing while the city faced up to 12 to 18 hours of load-shedding. In response, NEPRA’s lawyer informed the court that the authority had issued show-cause notices to K-Electric and had recently imposed a fine of Rs. 20 million.

However, the court remarked that such penalties had no real impact. Justice Faisal asked whether the fine had resolved the electricity crisis in Karachi. He also questioned whether NEPRA even had a proper technical team to monitor the situation.

Justice Hasan Akbar recalled that in 2020, the CEO of K-Electric had claimed there would be zero load-shedding in the future. He sarcastically remarked that now in 2025, there should be no load-shedding at all, yet the issue persists.

K-Electric’s lawyer responded by claiming that the situation had improved significantly. He said many feeders had now been exempted from scheduled outages.

The court was not satisfied. It ordered NEPRA to conduct a survey and submit a detailed report showing what improvements had been made to K-Electric’s infrastructure after privatization.

Additionally, the court directed NEPRA to resolve the complaint submitted by Jamaat-e-Islami by August 1. It also summoned a complete progress report from both NEPRA and K-Electric by August 12.