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Judgment
A raid was conducted by the officials of the appellant in the absence of the respondent and a bill was raised on account of theft of electricity amounting to Rs. 13,698. In spite of having taken the plea that there was no deficiency in service the District Forum repelled the same and vide impugned order dated 30th September, 2002 directed it to issue correct bill as per prescribed norms and also pay compensation of Rs. 5,000 and Rs. 500 as cost of litigation.
ADMITTEDLY the bill in question did not bear signatures and it was not a computerised bill and under the rules only computerised bills are payable. However, on the basis of the allegation of theft the respondent was also sent to jail on 16th March, 2002 but was released on bail on account of failure of the appellant to raise the computerised bill as the original bill did not bear anybody''s signatures. There is no dispute that electricity connection was provided to the respondent on ''as is where is'' basis scheme on payment of certain charges. Raid was conducted in the absence of the respondent which is not permissible under the scheme. However, perusal of the record shows that a bill was raised on account of misuse charges inasmuch as domestic electricity connection was being used for commercial purpose and not a case of theft. Assuming the allegation of misuse of the connection to be correct still the fact remains that the bill in question was not a computerised bill and did not bear the signatures of Assistant Engineer of the Zone and, therefore, the possibility of the bill having not been prepared unauthorisedly and also being fake cannot be ruled out.
In our view the District Forum has rightly held the appellant guilty of deficiency in service and since the allegation of using the domestic electricity connection for commercial purpose has not been convincingly controverted we partly allow the appeal by reducing the amount of compensation from Rs. 5,000 to Rs. 3,000 and maintain the rest of the order.
THE above payment shall be made within one month. Bank guarantee/FDR, if any, be returned to the appellant after completion of due formalities.
A copy of this order as per the statutory requirements, be forwarded to the parties free of charge and also to the concerned District Forum and thereafter the file be consigned to record room. Appeal partly allowed.