Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Justice Gulzar Ahmed has said that K-Electric is just busy making money.

The remarks were made during a hearing at the Supreme Court’s Karachi registry on Thursday.

A three-member bench, headed by CJP Ahmed and comprising Justice Ijaz ul Ahsan and Justice Qazi Amin, was hearing a case pertaining to the construction of a KE grid station over a greenbelt.

“Why did the K-Electric have to build the grid station on the greenbelt?” CJP Ahmed inquired.

Justice Ijaz Ul Ahsan inquired from the counsel representing the Pakistan Employees Cooperative Housing Society (PECHS) whether K-Electric was “supplying them electricity [for a special reason] because of which the society’s administration provided K-Electric with the land for the grid station.”

At this, the counsel replied that they had provided K-Electric with the land at normal rates for the sake “greater good of society”.

“What greater good of society? K-Electric is doing business, not public service,” CJP Ahmed said.

“KE is a private company which may establish as many grid stations as it wants but the electricity load shedding will never end,” he said, adding that ask people about the situation in their areas wherever grid stations were built.

CJP Ahmed also lashed out at KE’s services, saying that it “removed copper wires from the entire city and earned billions of dollars in a day”, adding that instead, the company installed aluminium cables across the city that cannot bear the load.

“KE is only making money,” CJP Ahmed said. “It blackmails people and charges money from them for electricity that is stolen.”

The court gave the counsel till tomorrow (Friday) to get directives for the removal of the grid station in question.