BEFORE THE DISTRICT CONSUMER DISPUTES REDRESSAL FORUM, PATIALA.

                                                Complaint No.CC/10/854  of 27.9.2010 

                                                Decided on:          21.9.2011

Surjit Singh S/o Sh.Kehar Singh R/o village Saholi, Bhadson Road, Tehsil Nabha, District Patiala, having account No.K62BF020321M with ops.

                                                                             -----------Complainant

                                      Versus

1.                 Punjab State Power Corporation Ltd., The Mall, Patiala through its Secretary, Head Office, The Mall, Patiala.

2.                 S.D.O. Sub Division Bhadson, PSPCL, District Patiala.

                                                                             ----------Opposite parties.

                                      Complaint under Section 12 of the

                                      Consumer Protection Act.

                                      QUORUM

                                      Sh.D.R.Arora, President

                                      Smt.Neelam Gupta, Member

Present:

For the complainant:     Sh.M.S.Dhingra , Advocate

For opposite parties:     Sh.Pawan Puri, Advocate

                                         ORDER

D.R.ARORA, PRESIDENT

          The complainant is a consumer of the electricity connection bearing account No.K62BF020321M installed in his Dhaba being run under the name and style of Sarpanch Da Dhaba situate on the Boadson Road, in village Saholi,District Patiala with the help of which he is earning his livelihood. He has been paying the charges of the electricity bills regularly and nothing was due against him.

2.       It is alleged that on 18.10.2008 at about 3PM some persons had come to his Dhaba and taken their lunch but they failed to pay the charges of the bill and when the complainant demanded the amount they threatened him saying that they belonged to the electricity department. The complainant did not bother for the aforesaid threatening and collected the bill from them.

3.       On 20.9.2010, the complainant received a provisional order of assessment no.640 dated 19.8.2010 from the ops having raised the demand of Rs.44052/- on account of theft of the electricity allegedly being made by him with the help of a kundi connection.

4.       On receipt of the aforesaid order of assessment, the complainant met the higher officers of the ops and apprised them that the electricity supply was  provided from 12 mid night to 2 a.m. and there was no question of any theft of energy being committed by the complainant. However, the officers did not pay any heed to the request of the complainant and rather enhanced the compounding charges given in the demand notice from Rs.9000/- to Rs.15000/-.They also supported their employees having taken the lunch at the Dhaba of the complainant on 18.8.2010.

5.       Again on 27.9.2010 the complainant met the higher officers of the PSPCL at Patiala but they also failed to listen to the complainant. Accordingly, the complainant  approached this Forum through the present complaint brought under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act,1986( for short the Act)  for a direction to the ops not to disconnect the supply to his aforesaid electricity connection; to wave off the demand of Rs.44052/- as also the amount of Rs.15000/- on account of compounding charges; to pay him Rs.20000/- by way of compensation due to harassment and mental agony and also to award him the costs of the complaint.

6.       On notice, the ops appeared and filed their written version having raised certain preliminary objections, interalia that the complainant is not a consumer under the Act as he is using the electricity for commercial purposes.He has employed several workers in running the business of hotel/restaurant and that the notice issued under Section 135 of the Electricity Act 2003( for short the Act of 2003) can not be challenged before the Consumer Forum and therefore, the Forum lacks jurisdiction to entertain and try the complaint. As regards the facts of the complaint it is averred that Sr.Executive Engineer Enforcement Sangrur alongwith AAE Enforcement and JE Operation of the Sub Division Bhadson had conducted the checking of the connection of the complainant on 18.8.2010 in the presence of Lal Chand s/o Krishan Chand, a representative of the complainant and the complainant was found committing theft of the energy by way of taking the supply directly from the service line by putting a hook as described in the checking report. He was committing theft by erecting 20-22 meters 2C PVC 4/6 mm2 cable. The checking report was thumb marked by Lal Chand in token of the correctness of the same and a coy of the checking report was also delivered to said Lal Chand.

7.       On the basis of the checking report, notice under Section 135 of the Act of 2003 having raised the demand of Rs.44052/- was sent to the complainant vide memo no.640 dated 19.8.2010.The complainant was also demanded ofRs.15000/-as compounding charges having committed theft of the energy. However, the complainant failed to prefer any objections before the competent authority against the order of provisional assessment. The demand was raised by the ops as per the Electricity Supply Code and Related Matters Regulations 2007.

8.       The ops have denied the other allegations made by the complainant with regard to employees of the PSPCL having taken the lunch from the Dhaba of the complainant and having abused the complainant being a manipulation. Ultimately, it was prayed to dismiss the complaint.

9.       In support of her claim, the complainant produced in evidence,Ex.C1  his sworn affidavit, Ex.C4, the sworn affidavit of Mewa Singh alongwith the documents Exs.C2 and C3 and his learned counsel closed the evidence.

10.     On the other hand, on behalf of the ops their learned counsel produced in evidence Ex.R1, the reply to the complaint in the form of affidavit, Ex.R1( a duplicate exchibit for the sake of brevity it will now be referred to as Ex.R1/A) the  sworn affidavit of Raminderjit Singh,Sr.Executive Engineer, Enforcement Sangrur, Ex.R2 the sworn affidavit of Ashok Kumar, Additional Assistance Engineer, Enforcement,Sangrur alongwith documents, Exs.R3 to R5 and closed their evidence.

11.     The  complainant  filed the written arguments. We have examined the same, heard the learned counsel for the parties and gone through the evidence on record.

12.     First of all we take up the objection raised by the ops that the complainant is not a consumer as he is running a Dhaba for earning profit and thus it is a commercial unit. In this regard it may be noted that it is the catagorical averment made by the complainant that he is running the Dhaba for earning his livelihood. There is no evidence to have been led by the ops that the complainant has got any other source of earning. We can also understand a person running a Dhaba in the country side in the area of village Saholi will be doing the business of Dhaba for the sake of earning his livelihood and not for any commercial activity. Therefore the citation Gagan Chowdhary Versus New India Assurance Company Limited and another 2004(1)JRC 385  relied upon by the learned counsel for the ops can not be pressed into service for advantage.

13.     Now coming to the facts of the case on merits, Ex.R3, is the copy of the checking report dated 18.8.2010 as got proved by the ops with the assistance of the sworn affidavits, Ex.R1/A of Raminderjit Singh Sr.Executive Engineer, Enforcement, Sangrur,Ex.R2 of Ashok Kumar, Additional Assistance Engineer, Enforcement Sangrur who had conducted the checking of the connection of the complainant on 18.8.2010.As per the checking report,Ex.R3, a single phase meter was installed in the ahata of the Dhaba but the same was not connected with any supply line of the PSPCL. Even the out going leads of the meter were not connected with any load bearing cable and rather on the back side of the Dhaba, in a constructed portion one connection of the electricity connection was attached and from that connection with the help of a 20-22 2C PVC 4/6 mm2 the supply was taken to the Dhaba. The report is shown to have been thumb marked by Lal Chand s/o Krishan Chand, manager of the Dhaba.

14.     On the basis of the checking report the ops had sent the order of provisional assessment,Ex.R4 to the complainant having raised the demand of Rs.44052/- on account of theft of the energy.

15.     It was submitted by Sh.M.S.Dhingra,the learned counsel for the complainant that there is no evidence to show that Lal Chand is the manager/owner of the Dhaba.A false checking report was made out against the complainant because of the officials of the PSPCL having threatened the complainant when he charged the amount for the food served by him to them.

16.     It was also submitted by Sh.Dhingra that in the checking report,Ex.R3, the name and designation of the Sr.Xen, Enforcement, Sangrur as also of the Additional Assistance Engineer, Enforcement Sangrur have not been recorded. Even the ops failed to disclose their names in the written statement filed by them.

17.     It was also submitted by Sh.Dhingra, that the signatures appearing on the affidavit ,Ex.R1 of Raminderjit Singh,Sr.Executive Officer, Enforement do not tally with the signatures of him appearing on the checking report,Ex.R3.

18.     It was submitted by Sh.Dhingra that in the letter no.641 dated 19.8.2010,Ex.R5  written by op no.2 to the Inspector Anti Power Theft, Police Station, Patiala, the number of the demand notice and date have not been mentioned going to show that the same were manipulated later on.

19.     On the other hand it was submitted by Sh.Pawan Puri, the learned counsel for the ops that in the checking report,Ex.R3, where Raminderjit Singh Sr.Executive Officer  has put his signatures his designation as also the place of posting have clearly been written. Similarly where the signatures of Additional Assistant Engineer,Ashok Kumar have been put, his designation of the Enforcement has also been recorded. Similarly under the signatures of JE Bhadson the particulars of the status and of the station have been written. Similarly it was submitted that in the order of provisional assessment, it is recorded that the connection was checked on 18.8.2010 vide checking report no.1815 by Sr.Xen Enforcement,Sangrur and therefore, there was no confusion about the officers having conducted the checking.

20.     It was further submitted by Sh.Puri that the ops have examined Raminderjit Singh,Sr.Xen Enforcement Sangrur and Additional Assistance Engineer, Enforcement Sangrur Ashok Kumar having produced their sworn affidavits,Exs.R1/A and R2 respectively and therefore, it could not be argued on behalf of the complainant that it is not clear from the checking  as to who were the officers who had conducted the checking.

21.     As regards the checking having been conducted in the presence of Lal Chand s/o Krishan Chand r/o Nabha, manager of the Dhaba, the complainant has not produced the affidavit of Lal Chand to rebut the said fact. It was not difficult for the complainant to have made a deposition in his sworn affidavit that no person in the name of Lal Chand s/o Krishan Chand is employed by him. What is the reason to disbelieve the version of the ops especially when the  father’s name of Lal Chand qua name of his town i.e. Nabha stand mentioned in the checking report.

22.     Then it was submitted by Sh.Puri, that the complainant has manipulated the story with regard to the some officials of the PSPCL having taken the food from the Dhaba of the complainant on 18.8.2010 and that when they were demanded of the charges of the food they threatened the complainant saying that they belonged to the Electricity Department and that on account of that the false checking report has been made out against the complainant. As a matter of fact the checking was conducted on 18.8.2010 as would appear from,Ex.R3 and therefore, it was submitted by Sh.Puri, that the complainant has manipulated the story. Had any official of the electricity department threatened the complainant when he demanded the charges of the food served by him to them, he was expected to have made a complaint against the employees of the electricity department to the police or to the higher authorities of the Electricity Department.

23.     Then it was submitted by Sh.Puri, that admittedly the complainant received the order of provisional assessment but he failed to raise any objections before the competent authority .The order of assessment was received by him on 20.9.2010 as alleged in  para no.5 of the complaint disclosing the theft of the energy but despite the averments having been made in the complaint that he met the higher officers he failed to raise any objections against the order of assessment.Sh.Puri placed reliance upon the citation Uttari Haryana Bijlee Vitran Nigam Limited & Anr. Versus Karam Chand 2010(2)CLT 3 , of the Hon’ble National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, New Delhi for the observations, “The inspection report itself bears endorsement made by the inspection team that the consumer refused to sign the document. In our view, in case the consumer refuses to sign the inspection report and does not co-operate with the inspection team no eye-brows can be raised against fairness of the inspection. That apart , if the respondent was aggrieved with the provisional assessment made by the Assessing Officer, it was open to him to file objection and eventually to move the Appellate Authority and Statutory Body, constituted under the Act. The notice, imposing penalty was also acknowledged by respondent. We do not feel impressed about any action resorted to by the respondent challenging either the alleged inspection or imposition of penalty, as required under the Act.”

24.     We have considered the submissions and find that from the sworn affidavits,Ex.R1/A of RaminderjitSingh,Sr.Executive Engineer,Enforement Sangrur and Ex.R2 of Ashok Kumar,Additional Assistant Engineer, Enforcement Sangrur, it has been established that the complainant was found committing theft of the energy unauthorizedly with the help of 20-22 meter 2C PVC 4/6 mm2 wire connected with the supply of the tubewell connection and the meter of the electricity connection was not having any connectivity of the service line as would appear from the diagram made in the checking report,Ex.R3. Consequently op no.2 had served the complainant with the provisional order of assessment,Ex.R4but the complainant did not bother to raise any objections against the same. We do not find any reason to say that Lal Chand is not the person of the complainant who was running the Dhaba at the spot and in whose presence the checking was conducted and even to whom the copy of the checking report was supplied.

25.     On the one hand the complainant states about the officials of the PSPCL having visited his Dhaba on 18.8.2010 and has made out a story that they had come to take the lunch and after taking their lunch they did not make the payment but on the other hand he is denying the visit of the Sr.Executive Engineer and Additional Assistant Engineer of Enforcement ,Sangrur.Apparently the plea has been innovated   by the complainant and we do not find any substance in the complaint and in the light of the citation Uttari Haryana Bijlee Vitran Nigam Limited & Anr. Versus Karam Chand (Supra) the complaint is hereby dismissed.

Pronounced.

Dated:21.9.2011

                                                Neelam Gupta                  D.R.Arora

                                                Member                            President