HANIF KHAN Vs. BIHAR STATE ELECTRICITY

JUDGEMENT

(1.) THE petitioners in these 14 writ petitions, comprising this batch of cases, are electrical consumers having either a low tension or a high tension connection. They assail the action of the Board in raising bills on the basis of certain fixed percentage of the load factor of the consumer.

(2.) IT may be noted that with the professed object of checking theft of electrical energy, the Bihar State Electricity Board devised a scheme of raising bills on the basis of load factor (@ 30% of the load factor in case of low tension connections and @ 45% of the load factor in case of high tension connections). The scheme was contained in the notification, dated 16.2.1987 issued by the Board making it effective retrospectively from 12.6 1982

(3.) THE aforesaid notification and the bills raised on that basis came under challenge before this Court in CWJC No. 1513 of 1988, Parmeshwar Kumar Agrawal v. Bihar State Electricity Board, Patna Ors. A bench of this Court at Ranchi allowed the writ petition and held that even during the period the meter remained defective, the consumer could be billed only in accordance with the terms of the agreement and the provisions of Sec. 26(6) of the Electricity Act and not on the basis of the factor as envisaged in the impugned notification. The judgment of this Court in the case of Parmeshwar Kumar Agrawal is reported in A.l.R. 1989. Patna 197 : 1989 PLJR 40