Complainant Himat Singh through the present complaint filed under section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 (for short 'the Act') has sought that the titled opposite parties be directed to withdraw the arbitrarily drawn impugned Bill dated 05.08.2014 for Rs.14,294/- and instead pay him Rs.20,000/- as compensation for causing mental agony, harassment & inconvenience etc besides Rs.10,000/- as litigation expenses, in the interest of justice and fair play.
2. The case of the complainant in brief is that he had been the holder of the electric connection # G49GF530540L and has been paying its consumption Bills regularly. However, he received the inflated impugned Bill dated 05.08.2014 for Rs.14,294/- and thus contacted the OP service providers who informed that the same pertained to the period of Meter Change and for the enhancement of connected Load to 4 KW. The complainant has asserted having duly paid the consumption Bills during the period in question but the OP would not listen although the same has been against their own tariff rules and that caused harassment and monetary loss to him amounting to deficiency in service on their part and thus prompted the present complaint with the desired relief as prayed, hereinabove
3. Upon notice, the Opposite Parties appeared through their counsel and filed the joint written version questioning the very maintainability of the complaint since the goods/services here are being used for commercial purpose. Moreover, the impugned Bill has been hypothetically drawn for the period when the Electric Meter remained ‘dead’ and the connected Load was enhanced to 4 KW but in accordance with the applicable tariffs etc and thus there being no deficiency in service (on their part), the present complaint deserved dismissal with costs.
4. Both the parties have produced/filed their respective affidavits and other related documents in evidence to support their pleadings/objections on record and the learned counsels for the litigants have duly put forth their respective arguments. We have carefully considered and perused all the available material while adjudicating the present complaint.
5. We observe that the complainant has been running his welding workshop for earning his livelihood through self employment and thus the present compliant is ad judicable under the Act and thus put on trial, here. Further, the OP service providers have totally ignored to quantify the length of the ‘dead-period’ of the defective Electric Meter and/ or the basis of ‘how’ the same gets determined, in a fair manner. And, in the absence of a justifiable, transparent and defined choice of ‘Bill Re-fabrication’ etc; arbitrariness cannot be ruled out beyond the reasonable doubt. The change of tariff-rates with the change of connected Load from 1 KW to 4 KW has also not been disclosed to justify the inflated volume of the impugned Bill. To sum it up, the OP have not been able to successfully prove the veracity of the impugned Bill and are thus found ‘guilty’ of deficiency in service on their part in discharging its consumer friendly service towards the present complainant.
6. In the light of the all above, we partly allow the present complaint by setting aside the impugned Bill of 05.08.2014 and also ORDER the Opposite parties to draw the actual consumption Bills based upon the clear Meter readings only and the hypothetical Bills as an exceptional alternative measures only (and that too duly accompanied with understandable statements and calculations etc). Further, directed to pay the complainant Rs.5,000/- as cost and compensation for the ensuing harassment but within 30 days of the receipt of the copy of these orders otherwise the aggregate amount shall attract interest @ 9% PA from the date of the orders till actually paid.
7. Copy of the order be communicated to the parties free of charges. After compliance, file be consigned to records.
(Naveen Puri) President
ANNOUNCED: (G.B.S.Bhullar) (Jagdeep Kaur)
February 09, 2015. Member. Member.
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