Sindh High Court (SHC) on Wednesday restrained Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) from taking any coercive action against Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) in connection with Rs 150 million recovery notice for providing municipal services.
The SHC bench, headed by Justice Nadeem Akhtar, while hearing the SSGC’s petition, also issued notice to KMC directing it to file the comments in this regard by November 15.
The SSGC submitted in its petition that KMC had sent it Rs 469,409 demand notice in 2012 asking it to pay amount for having municipal services. The KMC was replied that SSGC had always managed the KMC related municipal services at its own cost by its own staff and the KMC was satisfied with the reply and did not pursue the matter.
The petitioner added that it got shock on October 14 after receiving another bill demanding Rs 150 million for the municipal utility charges within seven days.
“The KMC had issued recovery notice under the garb of so called resolution passed by then City District Government under SLGO 2001. Since the SLGO was already repealed by the SLG Act in 2013, the demand by KMC was the violation of the rules as it had no power to issue such notice and demanding bills for municipal utility charges,” the SSGC added.
The court was requested to permanently restrain the KMC and its agent from harassing the SSGC to fulfill the KMC’s demand. The court was further requested to restrain the KMC from publishing notices against SSGC in newspapers and sending recovery notices.
The court issued notice to KMC directing it to file its comments by the next hearing. It also restrained the KMC from taking any coercive action against the petitioner.
