THEFT OF ELECTRICITY –ROLE OF CONSUMER FORUM

       It is held by the Supreme Court in the matter of   Haryana State Electricity Board vs Mam Chand on 28 April, 2006 that mere the fact of consumer depositing the amount of the bill raised by the licensee does not amount to admission or confession of guilt. In order to avoid disconnection of electricity, consumer finds no way but to pay 50% of such arbitrary bill.Once Licensee has marked ‘theft’ on any subscriber meter, the subscriber is billed for a hefty amount. The only recourse then left to the consumer is to go to consumer forum for reprisal of his grievance.

                                            Consumer fora lack the jurisdiction to deal with theft cases because it is a criminal offence.  Electricity board claims  that unauthorized use of electricity, tampering of meters, and distribution of meters and calibration of electric current are matters of technical nature and under section 145 of the said 2003 Act and jurisdiction of the civil court to entertain suits in respect of matters falling under Section 126 is expressly barred To deal with this type of  matters, the Electricity Board has set up a number of Lok Adalats to redress the  grievances by giving 50% rebate in theft matters. These  Lok Adalats have gained popularity because of the fast disposal of such cases. However at times this fact has been ignored by the  Consumer foras  while exercising its jurisdiction, whether or not the licensee has followed the norms/test  for bringing a particular case  under the category of theft /DAE and  refuse to admit it  for the only reason, it is marked as theft case by the Electricity Board.With the result , every tenth case coming to fora is tagged as ‘theft case’ without following the criteria as provided in their Regulation or Act.

                                            Electricity Board is a service provider for supplying electricity to the subscribers . Checking the case in hand and scrutinizing the same under the prevalent law for identifying it  as theft is also providing service and hence definitely a  subject for consumer fora.An intense debate took place on the subject when State commission of Delhi passed  number of orders in favor of consumers in theft matters and  held that all cases branded as theft were not  thefts  and bills raised under that penal section were quashed.High court of Delhi then took a very strong stand by deciding that theft cases cannot be handled by consumer fora. Thereafter  Hon’ble Supreme court had an occasion to deal with a matter of  Haryana State Electricity Board vs Mam Chand on 28 April, 2006 The key question for determination in this case was whether disputed and complicated questions of fact and law arising under the provisions of the Electricity Act, could be decided in a summary manner by the Consumer Fora.

       The court after a lot of discussion on the issue remitted  the case to National                commission to decide the matter  in the light of the provisions of the Electricity Act, 2003 with the rules framed hereunder either expressly or by incorporation.

Similar question was raised in yet another matter of Accounts Officer, Jharkhand ... vs Anwar Ali on 9 October, 2007 which was also sent back to national commission to decide on the issue raised by electricity board on the point of raising bills according to their code.

 

In both the above cases National commission had dealt with the subject and held that Electricity matters come under the preview of services defined under consumer protection act It was obvious that once court has remitted back the case to consumer commissions , Hon’ble Supreme court wanted state commission and National commission to go into finding as to whether electricity board is a complete code in itself to deal with billing matters and whether they have followed their own regulations to come to the conclusion that particular case falls under the category of theft

After these cases, no one has bothered to look into the matter that the licensee company is working under the misconception that every DAE case is a theft case irrespective of the fact whether it is on account of broken seals of the meter or tempering or slowing down of the meter or broken glass of window or missing of one or two seals. With little realization that criteria for raising bill on the proof of ‘direct theft’ is on different parameter than that of the DAE.  This distinction is conspicuous not only by Section 135 of the Indian Electricity Act but also from the definitions provided by DERC (performance, standard-consuming billing).  Regulation 2002.  Merely because title of Section 135 is ‘Theft of electricity’, that does not mean that ‘direct theft’ and DAE are one and the same thing and same criteria is applicable for raising the electricity bills

              Regulation 2(1)(i) of DERC defines the ‘Direct Theft’ which  means abstraction of electrical energy either through bypassing the meter or through external arrangement  or  through unauthorized tapping of the supply from licensee’s distribution network.

                          Regulation 2(1(m) defines the ‘Dishonest abstraction of energy(DAE) as abstraction of electrical energy where accessibility to the internal mechanism of the metering equipment and some collateral evidence is found to support the conclusion that the tampering of meter has been done to record less energy than actually passing through it. 

                 Regulation 25(v) also provides that case for DAE shall not be booked only on account of one seal on the meter missing or tampered or breakage of glass window, etc., unless corroborated by consumption pattern of consumer as per regulation 26(ii)

                As per regulation 26(!!)  before personal hearing, the officer of the licensee, before whom personal hearing has to be given, shall analyze the case after carefully considering all the documents, submissions by the consumer, facts on record and the consumption pattern, wherever availabl

                But in many cases, requirement of Regulation 25 & 26 were given a complete go by. To an extent that even the complainant  was neither given an opportunity to put forward his version nor was  any speaking order passed by the concerned authorities as per requirements of Regulatioin26(i) of DERC- 2002   In such situations, consumer fora need to go into the details and check whether testing a case for theft, all the legal provisions have been followed strictly. This exercise by the electricity board is also a service to the subscriber ,the question of theft comes only after the proper investigation has taken place .Consumer Foras are entitled to check at least two things-

1.      Investigation report prepared by the licencee company.

2.      FIR registered by the company against the subscriber which shows licencee company has proof and  the intention  to book the subscriber under theft  

 

 

By  Dr Prem Lata

Member ,CDRF-Delhi

 

Previous

Next