Police charged on January 18 without arrest chairman of Georgian National Electricity Regulatory Commission (GNERC) Guram Chalagashvili of exceeding his official powers.

City Court in Kutaisi ordered GEL 3,000 bail for Chalagashvili instead of Gel 10,000 requested by the prosecution, Chalagashvili’s lawyer said.

Police have claimed that Chalagashvili exceeded his powers when on January 12 he allegedly ordered for unspecified reasons a local executive of electricity distributor company in western Georgia to suspend power supply in a village in Tskaltubo; the blackout affected hundreds of households and about dozen of private companies in Kutaisi as well, the Interior Ministry said.

Chalagashvili denied charges as “absurd” and said that he requested local electricity distributor to temporarily suspend power supply as there was a threat of electric shortcut.

The prosecution has also filed a motion requesting from the court to suspend Chalagashvili from office; the court, however, rejected the motion, according to Chalagashvili’s lawyer.

“This is an absurd allegation and a political order from the authorities; it seems that they are trying to seize control over the [electricity regulatory] commission, which is now an independent entity,” Chalagashvili told journalists in Kutaisi on January 19.