The Supreme court of Pakistan resumed hearing of Rental Power Projects here on Friday.

Earlier,The Supreme Court was told on Thursday that the allegation of a Rs 50 billion payment to Rental Power Projects was baseless because only an amount of Rs 18 billion was disbursed to these projects from the national kitty.

A division bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and Justice Kilji Arif Hussain has been hearing a suo motu case clubbed with identical petitions, alleging corruption in the award of contracts for rental power projects (RPPs).

During the course of hearing, Pepco counsel Khawaja Tariq Rahim, Reshma Power Plant's lawyer Hafeez Pirzada and former Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf were present.

The Chief Justice observed that remedies could have been found if intelligent and talented brains were given a chance to design policies to develop systems for society, adding that it was a common phenomenon that government was negotiating with the IMF for loans.

The Chief Justice remarked that Pakistan's foreign debt was increasing day by day while awards of RPP contracts without advertisement were in question.

According to him, the apex court always takes decisions in the larger public interest.

The Chief Justice observed that no explicit policy was presented by Wapda and Pepco before the court to tackle the prevailing electricity situation in the country.

The CJP showed grave concern on the award of electricity generation contracts to RPPs, saying that even after spending billions of rupees a national grid received less than it actually required.

According to him, the Cabinet is competent to terminate the contracts of those RPPs that fail to achieve Commercial Operation Date (COD).

The CJP inquired about the amount of fine collected from those power generation plants which failed to produce electricity according to planning.

Tariq Rahim replied that more than Rs 100 million was realised from different RPPs as fine as per contracts for late production.

The CJP revealed that although the petitioners had talked about corruption that took place in relation to projects, that did not give their views on the concept of setting up RPPs.

He stated that there was no need of RPPs if IPPs were given due consideration.

On this occasion, Justice Khiliji questioned why oil was not being purchased for the RPPs plants, adding that people were forced to take to the streets to protest against the prevailing situation.

He asked whether there was a way to eliminate Kunda system which, being a major reason of theft, was denting the national transmission as well as the national exchequer.

The CJP observed: "The Recently-announced SC judgement on Karachi unrest is a wake-up call for the present regime".

On the occasion, the counsel for Reshma Power Plant said government had failed to deliver, which would disappoint everybody.

He said the decision-makers should learn a lesson from the history.

He informed the bench that the government had no money to purchase oil for the plants while only five power plants were operational in the country, adding that the government approved 19 plants but there was no possibility of initiation of work on half of the projects.

The CJP questioned that how it would be possible to decide tariff without ascertaining the production capacity of RPPs.

He also asked why the RPPs were not being given fuel supply.

Pirzada told the bench that the national exchequer could not afford the purchase of fuel for the plants.

Khawaja Tariq Rahim contended that the country was facing the impact of dictatorial regime's policies, adding that the possibility to recover electricity charges from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Balochistan was next to zero.

He asserted that the apex court was repeatedly underscoring the need for transparency in relation to projects' contracts whereas the power companies were also not behind in mismanagement.

He dispelled the impression that the Speaker National Assembly was against initiation of a debate on RPPs in the House, adding that a discussion on the projects did continue for five days in the National Assembly.

Rahim apprised the bench that the statistics pertaining to power demand and supply and the capacity of RPPs were presented to Public Accounts Committee where nobody raised any objection.

He made a point that approval to RPPs was given by the Federal Cabinet and Economic Co-ordination Committee during the era of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

While addressing Wapda counsel Tariq Rahim, the Chief Justice asked whether the then PAC and Parliament gave a clean chit to RPPs, adding that prima facie transactions were in question.

In the last moments of hearing, the bench asked Raja Pervez Ashraf whether he would respond to alleged corruption by himself or through his counsel.

The former minister prayed for time to respond on the next date.