Islamabad - The Islamabad High Court (IHC) Wednesday directed the authorities to produce electricity load shedding schedule before the court on June 26 (Friday).
A single bench of Islamabad High Court comprising Justice Aamer Farooq issued the notices to deputy commissioner (DC) Islamabad and chief executive officer (CEO) Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) while hearing a petition moved by Tariq Asad Advocate in person against the power outages during prayers timings.
He adopted in his petition that with increasing electricity shortfall in the country, load shedding has become indispensable as Pakistan has been plagued with power generation problems since decades and thus the petitioner is well aware of that the country has, for years, not been able to crack the electricity riddle and the situation has gone from bad to worse over the years and the common people suffer and in the prevailing circumstances there is no escape from load shedding.
“Thus the petitioner has no grievance against the load shedding, but is hardheartedly aggrieved by the timing schedule of load shedding which is mostly during the prayers timings.
It has been observed in almost all the mosques of Ahl-e-Sunnat in Islamabad that the prayers timings for Zuhr, Asar and Ishaa are on or around 1:30pm, 5:30pm and 9:30pm respectively and power outages are conducted exactly during the same timings, between 1:00pm to 2:00pm, 5:00pm to 6:00pm and 9:00pm to 10:00pm,” contended the petitioner.
He further argued that in some areas load shedding is done even exactly at the Sahar, Iftar and Traveeh timings, irrespective of the usual schedule which reflects the sadist attitude of the respondents.
Therefore, he requested to the court that the respondents be directed to resolve this issue in a compatible manner so that the load shedding may be scheduled for the same duration in such a manner that the timings of load shedding may not clash with the prayers timings.