MAHABOOB Vs. KERALA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) As a common issue arises in the Writ Appeal and the two Writ Petitions, they are taken up together for consideration and disposed by this common judgment.

(2.) The writ appeal impugns the judgment of a learned Single Judge in W.P(C).No.31411 of 2017 whereby the challenge by the appellant against an order of the Appellate Authority constituted under Sec. 127 of the Electricity Act, 2003 was dismissed as devoid of merit. W.P(C).No.7734 of 2019 on the other hand is a writ petition filed by the Kerala State Electricity Board Ltd. [KSEB], the distribution licensee in the instant case, impugning the orders of the assessing authority and the appellate authority under the Electricity Act to the extent that they passed their respective orders in relation to the writ appellant, in a manner that was inconsistent with the terms of the Electricity Act. The brief facts necessary for a disposal of these two cases are as follows:

(3.) The appellant submitted a detailed explanation to the provisional assessment proposed by the KSEB and after considering the same, the assessing authority reduced the demand to Rs.48,60,471.00. While the assessing authority found that the excess connected load was admitted, and a finding regarding the period from which the unauthorised use of electricity took place could be determined by looking at the date from which an increased usage of electricity was noticed, since the CT meter of the appellant was changed by the KSEB in March 2016, the demand for differential charges could not be made for a period prior to that date. Accordingly, the demand was confined to the period from March 2016 to February 2017.