GIRISH KUMAR BALUBHAI CHOKSI Vs. STATE OF GUJARAT

JUDGEMENT

(1.) The case of the complainant before the District Forum was that he was made to pay excess electricity charges by the Gujarat Electricity Board. His case was that he had taken electricity connection for running a factory for which he was regularly paying the bills raised on him without any demur. He discovered that the bill raised for the period November, 1993 to January, 1994 for a sum of Rs. 3,555.36 was excessive. He made further enquiries and came to know that the Board was collecting from him duty @ 60% which was payable by domestic consumers. The Board had ignored the fact that he was running an industrial concern and was liable to pay duty only @ 10%. He, therefore, lodged a complaint with the District Forum that the Board had recovered illegally electricity duty from him from April, 1990.

(2.) IT may be mentioned that before lodging the complaint with the District Forum, the complainant had approached the Board to correct the bills. The Board directed him to approach the Collector of Electricity Duty. The Collector, however, corrected the bill for six months and refunded the excess amount of duty collected by the Board but refused to correct the bills for the period November, 1993 to January, 1994 as time -barred. According to the complainant, he had to pay an excess amount of Rs. 2,471.31 by way of electricity duty.

(3.) SECTION 3 of the Bombay Electricity Duty Act, 1958 which is the charging section of the Act imposes a duty on the consumption of electricity at the prescribed rate. In Schedule 1, it has been provided that 10% of the consumption charges is leviable as duty for an industrial undertaking consuming exclusively low tension energy. Section 4 of the Act lays down that every licensee shall pay to the State Government at the time and in the manner prescribed the proper electricity duty payable under the Act in respect of energy supplied by him to the consumer. The Board is the licensee in this case. It was supplying electrical energy to the consumer. It was, therefore, duty -bound to hand over the duty collected to the State. The amount of duty payable is included in the bills issued to the consumers for the consumption of electrical energy. Whatever is collected by the Board by way of duty is handed over to the State Government. The question is what is the remedy for excess collection of duty by the Board ? Statutory Rules have been framed under Section 12 of the Bombay Electricity Duty Act, 1958 called the "Bombay Electricity Duty (Gujarat) Rules, 1986". Rule 12 lays down the procedure and also a period of limitation for refund of excess collection of duty. It provides that no consumer shall be entitled to a refund of electricity duty charged by the licensee in excess of the duty leviable under Act unless an application for refund supported by original energy bill and receipt of payments is made to the Collector of electricity within six months from the date of payment of such excess duty.