KARACHI - The division bench of Sindh High Court on Monday summoned the KESC high ups seeking explanation over increasing the power tariff and unannounced loadshedding within two weeks. The bench comprising Justice Mushir Alam and Justice Mohammad Athar Saeed after hearing the comments from the counsels, asked the higher officials of Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) to submit their comments before the court in the next hearing. The joint constitutional petition moved by at least 18 plaintiffs including Sindh Bar Council, Sindh High Court Bar Association, Law Foundation, Shehri CBE (Citizens for Better Environment), and others against KESC, as well as National Electric Power Regularity Authority (NEPRA) and Water And Power Development Authority (WAPDA) and others over the poor functioning by the KESC in the departmental matters, as they are not in the interest of the consumers. The plaintiffs alleged in the petition that the Chairman and Vice Chairman of NEPRA never met the criteria and have not come up to the qualification standards. They added that the mismanagement have been observed by the authorities of Oil and Gas Regularity Authority (OGRA) as well as the other concerned departments that caused the consumers to suffer. They maintained that Wapda units in Sindh never produced electricity as per their installed capacity and their optimal operation was 60 per cent. The petitioners have termed the hike of power tariff as unjustified with the consumers. The KESCs performance have been worst since its privatisation, as its transmission and distribution losses that were 15 per cent at the time of privatisation, have gone up to 40 per cent. While the higher officials have been receiving more benefits as the salary bills of top-level officers have jumped up to billions of rupees. KESC was providing equity of Rs4 billion from the federal government every year, while after its privatisation, such equity is only the wastage of public money. The plaintiffs also alleged that the said company has totally failed for recovering its electricity bills and have written off bills worth one billion. While the KESC is passing on entire burden to its consumers who are regularly paying their bills. They also claimed in the petition that the beneficiaries were not taking interest in the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the company, as they were not present in the meeting which is unfair to the share holders. The plaintiffs have pleaded to take notice about the hike in the power tariff and against such poor performance of the said department, by issuing directive to reduce the tariff.