NAHAR ENTERPRISES Vs. CHAIRMAN TAMIL NADU ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE plaintiff in O. S. No. 1474 of 2003 on the file of the XIV Assistant Judge, City Civil Court, Chennai, who has lost the suit and the appeal filed therefrom has filed the above second appeal.

(2.) FOR the sake of convenience, the parties are referred to as arrayed in the suit.

(3.) THE brief facts that are necessary for the disposal of the above second appeal as culled out from the plaint are set out below: the plaintiff has been provided with two electricity service connection meters, bearing service connection Nos. 152:01:1273 and 152:01:1274. In said meters, Service Connection No. 152:01:1274 became defective and a complaint was lodged on 26. 06. 2001, but the defective meter was not at all replaced. On 03. 05. 2002, at about 1. 00 pm, the third defendant inspected the said defective service connection meter, without giving any notice of inspection and theft of electrical energy was alleged. The complaint given by the plaintiff to change the meter was not accepted. The third defendant insisted for the payment of compounding charges and therefore the plaintiff under protest paid a sum of Rs. 1,19,655/- on 04. 05. 2002 by way of two cheques to avoid disconnection. The defective meter was not sent for testing and therefore there was non-observance of the procedure. There was no theft of electrical energy and hence the plaintiff issued a legal notice on 16. 12. 2002 requesting the defendants to refund the amounts. Since there was no response, the suit has been filed seeking declaration to declare the levy of penalty for alleged electrical energy theft in service connection No. 152:01:1274 in the name of the plaintiff dated 03. 05. 2002 as null and void and to declare that the plaintiff is not liable to pay the compounded fine amount of Rs. 1,19,655/- to the defendants and for a mandatory injunction to direct the defendants to adjust the compounding charges collected from the plaintiff to the tune of Rs. 1,19,655/- towards future electricity consumption charges for service No. 152:01:1274 with the second defendant.