INDERJIT KUMAR Vs. HARYANA STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The threshold question which falls for determination in this maiden case before the State Commission is - whether the complainants herein are "consumers" within the meaning of the definition thereof in Clause (d) of Sub-section (1) of Sec.2 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 .

(2.) Necessarily it has to be noticed at the very outset that the respondent Haryana State Electrical Board (hereinafter called 'the Board') has vigorously challenged the very locus standi of the complainants and the maintainability of the complaint. This is, therefore, the primal issue. Since we are inclined to the view that this complaint must founded on the bed- rock of the twin preliminary objection, the facts relevant thereto only call for notice with relative brevity.

(3.) The 14 complainants in this joint petition are all residents of Rani Bagh, Rajindra Park, Durga Nagar and Ram Nagar Colonies, which have recently mushroomed on the outskirts of the growing urban complex of the Ambala City and its Cantonment. The petitioners are primarily aggrieved by the existing alignment of the 11 K. V. high tension electric line feeding the Kalpi Sub-Division, which passes over the aforesaid densely populated localities. It is alleged picturesquely that in certain cases the high tension wires are at a hand-shaking distance from the roof tops, and being not properly maintained, can lead to accidents of major magnitude. Already there has been a loss of couple of lives in the earlier years and recently on 22nd June, 1989 an 11 year old boy Munish son of Shri Avinash Kumar Bansal was near-fatally injured, while trying to remove a kite caught in the high tension wires passing over the roof-top of his house. This resulted in the amputation of his arm, right from the shoulder itself. It is the case of the complainants that the inhabitants of the houses in all the afore mentioned localities, thus, live under a constant fear of death and injury from the high tension wires and it is their stand that the houses therein have been constructed with the approval of the Municipal Committee of Ambala Sadar.