This court dismissed a writ petition challenging an electricity demand assessment ordered under Section 125 of the Electricity Act, 2003, finding no ground to interfere when meter seals were tampered with.
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Court No. - 6
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 38635 of 2005
Petitioner :- Smt. Satyawati Shukla
Respondent :- State Of U.P. Through Principal Secre. And Others
Counsel for Petitioner :- H.N. Singh,B. Narain Singh Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,R. Saxena
Hon'ble Yashwant Varma,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner. None has appeared for the contesting respondent even when the matter is taken up in the revised call.
This petition challenges an order passed by the Appellate Committee upholding the demand as raised by KESCO and the consequential bill dated 12 April 2005. On an inspection of the premises of the petitioner, the respondents found that the Meter and other apparatus had been tampered with and seals broken. Consequently, proceedings for assessment were initiated in terms of Section 125 of the Electricity Act, 2003 . The demand was challenged before the Appellate Committee which concurred with the assessment as framed.
Before this Court, learned counsel has contended that while computing the demand it was incumbent upon the respondents to take into consideration the provisions made in Clause 6.17.1 of the Code and to give benefit to the petitioner of the consumption which was recorded in the meter. It was submitted that the assessment has been finalized without excluding the consumption which was recorded by the meter.
This Court finds itself unable to sustain this submission since undisputedly the inspection report records that the seals of the meter and other equipments had been tampered with. Once the respondents found that the seal has been tampered with, the readings, if any, captured on the apparatus, is neither sacrosanct nor can be viewed as conclusive of consumption.
In view of the above, the Court finds no ground to interfere with the view taken by the Appellate Committee.
The petition shall in consequence stand dismissed .
Order Date :- 20.8.2019 Arun K. Singh
(Yashwant Varma, J.)
1 issue framed by the court
Whether the electricity demand should be computed excluding meter readings when the meter seals were tampered with.
1 provisions across 1 enactments
Smt. Satyawati Shukla
State Of U.P. Through Principal Secre.
Yashwant Varma
As recorded by the court registry
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