BEFORE THE DISTRICT CONSUMER FORUM : MEDAK AT SANGAREDDY

PRESENT: Sri Patil Vithal Rao, B.Sc., LL.B.,President

Smt. Meena Ramanathan, B.Com., Lady Member

              Sri G.Sreenivas Rao, M.Sc., B.Ed.,LL.B.,PGADR (NALSAR),Member

Tuesday, the 5^th day of November, 2013

CC. No. 10 of 2013

Between:

Shaik Nagavalli S/o Yousuf,

Age: 49 years, Occ: Agriculturist,

R/o NGO’s Colony, Narsapur (M),

Medak District.                                                                        ……Complainant

                   And

1. The Divisional Engineer,

APCPDCL, Medak Divisional at Medak.

1. The Additional Divisional Engineer,

APCPDCL, Narsapur, Medak District.

1. Assistant Engineer,

     APCPDCL, Narsapur, District Medak.

                                                                                         ……Opposite parties

                        This case came up for final hearing before us on 29.10.2013 in the presence of Sri Ch. Nagender, Advocate for complainant and Sri Ananth Rao Kulkarni, Advocate for opposite parties, on perusing the record and having stood over for consideration till this day, this Forum delivered the following:

O R D E R

(Per Se Smt. Meena Ramanathan, Lady Member)

                     This complaint is filed under Section 12 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, stating that the complainant, Shaik Nagavalli is the owner and cultivating land situated at Ramchandrapur (V), Narsapur (M) Medak District. He is cultivating different crops adjacent mango trees. He is using water from a bore well which has an electric motor. Th water from this bore well is used only for the purpose of agriculture and the said connection been the service connection no. 138 and is under the agricultural service category only. But the opposite parties are issuing the bills under the commercial category, which is illegal on their part. Despite several representations, oral and written, the opposite parties have not responded and continued to charge him under the commercial category. Under pressure of disconnection of the meter (138) he paid the bills, but as yet he is procuring bills under the commercial category only.

                   He further submits that he has two service connections. S.C.No.218 belongs to his house and S.C.No.138 in his agricultural connection. The opposite parties are issuing only one bill for both the service connection, which is very inconvenient and he is un able to decipher the bill details.

                   He has filed this complaint seeking direction from the Hon’ble Forum to address his grievance. In his prayer, he seeks that the bill issued to him (as per S.C.No. 138) is not as per commercial category rates and that the excess amount paid by him to the department be duly refunded. Towards deficiency of service and mental agony he wants a compensation of Rs. 75,000/-.

2.            The opposite parties filed their counter expressly denying the allegations made by the complainant. At the outset they contend that the petitioner is having one S.C. No. 218 for domestic purpose and S.C. No. 138 for agriculture purpose. The S.C. No. 138 is released under category-V of sub-category 16 which is related to horticulture and nursery, for which tariff rates are different under this category per unit charge, is Rs. 2.12. Apart from, energy charges, other charges like ‘customer charges’, late payment and other charges will be revised. The bill issued to the complainant shows all these charges clearly. The petitioner does not come under the free category of agriculture. They state that they have submitted a detailed statement of S.C. No. 138 – is under category-V.

                   They also submit that the complainant has not paid any amount for S.C. No. 138 from 2012 to April 2013. The total dues amount to Rs. 58,800/-.  In February 2012, he paid an amount of Rs. 14,000/-. Despite several demands from them towards payment of arrears, the complainant failed to comply and instead his filed this complaint wrongfully. They deny having collected an excess amount for wrong billing and strongly submit that despite arrears their service cannot be faulted at. Therefore they seek that the complaint may be dismissed with costs.

3.            The complainant has filed his evidence affidavit and marked Exs. A1 & A2. The Assistant Divisional Engineer, APCPDCL, Narsapur filed his evidence affidavit and relied on Exs. B1 to B4 in their defense. The counsel for the complainant has submitted written arguments but the counsel for the opposite parties did not submit written arguments. Heard both the counsel.

4.           Now the point for consideration is that whether there is any deficiency in service on the part of the opposite parties in claiming the reliefs by the complainant?

Point:

5.           There is no dispute that the complainant is the owner and cultivating the land situated at Ramchandrapur (V), Narsapur (M), Medak District. There is no dispute that he is having the agricultural electricity connection vide service no. 138. The dispute is solely regarding the issue of electricity instead of bills under commercial category, agricultural category.

6.                 The opposite parties have filed consumption, billing, collection and arrears particulars for the period from 02.05.2000 to 02.05.2013 vide Ex. B2 with regard to the complainant’s agricultural electricity service connection no. 138. When the complainant noticed that his service consumption was categorized as commercial instead of agricultural, he submitted an application protesting the same vide Ex. A2 on 25.02.2012. However on the same day he made remittance of a sum of Rs. 14,000/- vide Ex. A1. Ex. B1 is another demand bill-cum-notice from the APCPDCL towards the arrears for an amount of Rs. 58,800/- subsequent to the period under Ex. B2. The complainant also got another electric connection bearing service connection no. 218 for his domestic purposes. The APCPDCL has issued instructions to its officials concerned to monitor actual use of the domestic services identified with that of agriculture services by the consumers. Ex. B3 is a copy of the memo in this regard. Under the memo vide Ex. B4 the department issued instructions to adopt a methodology in arriving at the assessment of units consumed by the farmers category other than free power services. The learned counsel for the complainant has vehemently contended that though the complainant has been raising mango plants in his land, it cannot be treated as commercial use of the power supply because it is his will and pleasure to raise any type of crops in his agricultural land and that it cannot be made base to convert agricultural category to commercial category. To substantiate his contention he has relied on the decision in “Mohammed Ziaul Hussain vs APSEB and Ors”, 2002 (6) ALD 601. This is almost a similar case wherein the nursery of the consumer was shown as category-II-commercial by converting it from category-V agricultural in the billing. While dealing with the matter our Hon’ble High Court held that when the agricultural connection being used for growing the plants, the electricity board is no way concerned as to whether the plants are being sold or otherwise used. It was further held that it was within the province of the consumer to deal with the produce of the plants and as such categorization of his service connection in respect of ‘Plants Land’ as category-II-commercial has no basis and as such the board was directed to categorise his service connection as category-V agricultural and to issue revised bill in the same and adjust the amounts which were already paid by him and refund the excess amount paid in view of the billing under category-II. This decision is perfectly applicable to the facts of the present case on hand. Therefore we hold that the APCPDCL has to treat the use of electricity by the complainant under agricultural category and not commercial category, in respect of service connection no. 138. In this view of the matter the wrong categorization of the electric supply in the billing certainly amounts to deficiency in service on the part of the opposite parties.

7.           The point is thus answered in favour of the complainant.

8.            In the result, the complaint is allowed directing the opposite parties to treat the service connection no. 138 of the complainant under agricultural category and refund the excess amount paid, if any, by him under commercial category, after adjusting towards arrears; and pay compensation of Rs. 5,000/- and costs of Rs. 2,000/-. Time for compliance is one month, from the date of receipt of a copy of this order.

        Dictated to Stenographer, after transcription and correction the order is pronounced by us in the open court today on this the 7^th day of October, 2013.

       Sd/-                                           Sd/-                                 Sd/-

MALE MEMBER                     LADY MEMBER             PRESIDENT

APPENDIX OF EVIDENCE

                              WITNESSES EXAMINED

For the complainant:                                            For the opposite parties:-

DOCUMENTS MARKED

For the complainant:                                                   For the opposite parties:-

        Sd/-                                            Sd/-                             Sd/-

MALE MEMBER                       LADY MEMBER               PRESIDENT

Copy to

1. The Complainant
2. The opp.parties
3. Spare copy