DUMRAON TEXTILES LIMITED Vs. BIHAR STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) In this application, the petitioner which is a company incorporated under the Indian Companies Act, 1956 question the bills raised by the Bihar State Electricity Board (hereinafter referred to as 'the Board') during the period March, 199 2/06/1992.

(2.) The fact of the matter is not in dispute. The petitioner is a consumer of High Tension electrical energy having contract demand of 1275 K.V.A. of electrical energy in terms of an agreement dated 23-5-1979 as contained in Annexure 1 to the writ application. The Board installed a Trivector meter wherefor the petitioner has to pay rent. The transformer however was installed by the petitioner. According to the petitioner owing to highly unstable and erratic main supply voltage the current transfarmer and potential transformer (C.T.P.T.) of the Board's trivector meter was burnt on 9-5-1990. As the meter was burnt, the petitioner was billed on the basis of 4.03,528 units per month which was said to be the average unit consumed recorded during January, February and March, 1990. The meter however became functional on or from 1/07/1992. The grievance of the petitioner is that during the period March, 199 2/06/1992 there had been inadequate supply of electrical energy as a result whereof the petitioner could not have even consumed units of electrical energy calculated on the basis of three months average supply.

(3.) Mr. Navaniti Prasad Singh, learned counsel appearing on behalf of petitioner has raised short question in support of the application. Learned counsel submitted that the-bills on the basis of average supply can be raised only in terms of clause 3(c) of the agreement. But the bills have been raised on the basis of clause 16.8 of the new tariff which came into force with effect from 20th Sept. 1991. It has been submitted that average supply of electrical energy was only 45%. In this connection our attention was drawn to paragraphs 4, 5, 6 and 7 of the supplementary affidavit.