GUJARAT ELECTRICITY BOARD Vs. GRAHAK HIT SURAX MANDAL

JUDGEMENT

(1.) Original opponent Gujarat Electricity Board has brought in challenge order dated 28.8.2001 rendered by the learned Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Amreli in Consumer Dispute Case No.83 of 1992.

(2.) We have heard the learned Advocate for the appellant Gujarat Electricity Board, now appellant and Mr. M. J. Bodiya, the learned representative for the complainant. We have gone through the impugned order. We have also gone through the decisions submitted.

(3.) It would appear that the complainant applied for agricultural electric connection of 5 H. P. on 2.2.1984 by paying deposit of Rs.150 to the opponent Gujarat Electricity Board (GEB for short ). Having come to know that the applicants of the year 1984 were being electric connection, he enquired about the fact from the opponent GEB in the year 1986 but was informed that his name was not in the priority list. Some correspondence ensued between the parties thereafter. According to the complainant, some persons in the waiting list who applied for electric connection subsequent to him had been given electric connection. He, therefore, approached the learned Forum for appropriate direction for giving electric connection also for compensation in the year 1992 by filing the complaint in question. He alleged unfair trade practice as well as deficiency in service on the part of the opponent GEB. The opponent GEB resisted the complaint inter alia on the ground that the complainant could not be said to be a consumer in the eye of law, that the complaint was barred by limitation and that there was neither any deficiency in service nor unfair trade practice on the part of the opponent GEB as alleged. According to opponent GEB there was no discrimination practised by it in the matter of giving electric connection. It has also been submitted before us that some connections might have been given from the list of applicants who applied for electric connection on emergency basis (tatkal basis ).