DALIP SINGH Vs. H S E B

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Whether a son is ipso-facto the beneficiary of the service of electrical energy hired by his father from the Haryana State Electricity Board? This is the threshold significant question in this appeal.

(2.) The facts merit notice with pointed relevance to the aforesaid core question. Admittedly now the father of the appellant Shri Sumer Singh had taken a tubewell connection from the respondent-Board being connection No. G. A. P 52. The complaint was however, preferred by one of his many children namely Dalip Singh, appellant, alleging that some time earlier the connecting wires from an adjoining pole had fallen and disrupted the electric supply with the result of consequential damage to the crops. The somewhat curious plea was that for that reason the payment of the electricity bills could not be made with the result that the respondent-Board disconnected the electricity to the tubewell. However, subsequently on application the electric supply was restored on the 15th of December, 1991 and charges were levied on a flat rate. It was the complainants case that he was compelled to spend Rs.60/- on labour charges, therefor besides giving his own physical assistance, which led to his being delayed for an interview before the B. S. R. at Delhi. This according to the complainant further led to the result of the loss of job opportunity and consequently sizable relief for the disconnection of the electrical energy and the remote loss suffered was claimed.

(3.) In stoutly resisting the complaint, the respondent-Board firmly took up the plea that the complainant was not a consumer at all. It was pointed out that he did not even remotely hold any tubewell connection and the same was in the name of his father alone who had not chosen to make the least grievance about the matter. Elaborating on merits, it was pointed out that the complainant's father was a habitual defaulter in the payment of electricity charges and so the supply to his tubewell had to be disconnected on the 16th of November, 1991 after adequate notice of the orders passed to this effect on the 15th of October, 1991. It was however, admitted that on the payment of the bills and electricity charges on the 5lh of December; 1991 by the father of the complainant, the supply was restored to the tubewell on the 15th of December, 1991 on a flat rate basis.