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Muhammad Saleem v. Sui Southern Gas &,

YLR 2013 1559 · Balochistan High Court

This case involved a customer, Muhammad Saleem, who ran a hotel and had a dispute with Sui Southern Gas Company over his gas bills. He complained that his gas meter had stopped working properly, but instead of fixing it, the company later accused him of tampering with the meter and demanded large sums of money for unpaid gas charges, first around Rs. 28,000, later escalating to over Rs. 7 lakh. Saleem claimed the real reason behind this was his refusal to pay a bribe demanded by the company's officials, after which they installed new meters and issued inflated bills.

The trial court had dismissed his suit but reduced the amount he had to pay from about Rs. 7.4 lakh to Rs. 3.1 lakh, without clearly explaining how it reached that figure. Both sides appealed, each dissatisfied with different parts of the decision.

The Balochistan High Court found that the trial court had failed to properly discuss or analyze the evidence presented by either side, as required under the Civil Procedure Code. It did not clearly accept or reject any evidence and gave no proper reasoning for its conclusions, making the judgment arbitrary and legally unsound.

As a result, the High Court set aside the trial court's decision and sent the case back for a fresh decision, this time requiring the trial court to properly examine the evidence and give clear, reasoned findings on each issue. The case highlights the importance of courts providing transparent, evidence-based reasoning in judgments, especially in consumer disputes involving utility companies.

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