DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, MANSA. Complaint No.08/17.01.2008 Decided on : 20.08.2008 Chander Kanta W/o Sh.Surinder Pal, K.P.Singla Street, Mansa. ..... Complainant. VERSUS S.D.O., City, Punjab State Electricity Board, Mansa. ..... Opposite Party Complaint under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. ..... Present: Sh.Sushil Kumar Singla, counsel for the complainant. Sh.K.C.Garg, counsel for the opposite party. Before: Sh.Sarat Chander, Member. Smt.Neena Rani Gupta, Member. ORDER: Chander Kanta (hereinafter called as the complainant) has filed the present complaint against the S.D.O., Punjab State Electricity Board, Mansa (hereinafter called as the opposite party) for issuance of a direction to the opposite party to correct the bills wrongly issued to her; refrain from issuing her the bills on the basis of current consumption and also pay Rs.20,000/- as compensation along with Rs.500/- as litigation costs and Rs.5,500/- as counsel fee. Admitted facts of the case are that the complainant has obtained an domestic electric connection bearing Account No.WR350341 from the opposite party. Initially the sanctioned load was 5.36 KW and at present it is 8.84 KW. The complainant had been paying the electricity consumption bills regularly. The complainant had deposited Rs.2420/-on 24.9.2007 in respect of bill issued to her for the period from 8.7.2007 to Contd........2 : 2 : 8.9.2007. Again bill for the period from 8.7.2007 to 7.11.2007 amounting Rs.5900/- was sent to her, which was again deposited by her. The bill is stated to be wrongly issued by the OP because the amount deposited by the complainant previously had also been included in this bill. The opposite party sent her an another bill for the period from 8.7.2007 to 3.1.2008 amounting Rs.8280/-, which is again illegal and wrong because all the previous amounts deposited by the complainant had been included in this bill which was again deposited by her. Despite repeated requests of the complainant, the OP failed to rectify the bills and as such the OP is deficient in rendering service towards her. The complainant claims to have suffered mental tension and physical harassment on account of illegal demands raised from her. Hence this complaint. The opposite party filed its written version and raised certain legal objections regarding the maintainability of the complaint. On merits, it was contended that the bills sent to the complainant were computerized and were sent on average basis and as such legal and she is liable to pay the same. The demands raised from the complainant is claimed to be perfectly legal and valid. All other allegations were denied by the opposite party and a prayer for dismissal of the complaint was accordingly made. Both the parties have led their respective evidence in the shape of affidavits and documents. We have considered the arguments advanced by the learned counsel for the parties and carefully gone through the entire evidence placed on record. Obviously, the demand from the complainant is based upon average basis . But, the perusal of bills Ext.C1,C3 and C5, indicates that in each bill the period of bill starts w.e.f. 8.7.2007 and the amounts deposited by the complainant after the issued of each and every bill was added in the next bill, despite the fact that the complainant had duly Contd........3 : 3 : deposited the amount of the bills. In this respect the complainant has produced receipts Ex.C2, C4, which is supported by her affidavit Ex.C6. Opportunity was granted to the counsel for the opposite party to convince the Forum about the details of various bills sent to the complainant, but he couldn't do so. Further direction was given to him to produce the SDO concerned to explain the details, even the SDO was not produced to clear the things. The counsel failed to the convince us as to why the amounts deposited by the complainant were not taken into consideration at the time of preparation of the fresh bill every time. An adverse inference can thus be drawn against them. The OP can be safely held to be deficient in service in the absence of any document to prove in their favour . The demand raised by the opposite party from the complainant is thus rendered illegal, more so, when no opportunity of being heard had ever been granted to the complainant before raising the demand from her. As a consequence of the foregoing reasons, we allow the complaint with compensation of Rs.2000/-. The OP is directed to refund or adjust the excess amount deposited by the complainant. The OP is also burdened with Rs.1000/- as litigation costs. Compliance of the order be made within one month from the date of receipt of the copy of the order which shall be supplied to the parties free of charges under the rules and file be arranged, indexed and consigned to record. Pronounced: 20.08.2008. Neena Rani Gupta, Sarat Chander, Member. Member.
