IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB & HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Civil Writ Petition No.20032 of 2010 Date of decision: 27.01.2011. Punjab State Power Corporation Limited and another ......Petitioners Versus Chamkaur Singh ....Respondent CORAM: HON'BLE MR. JUSTICE SURYA KANT Present: Mr. Vishal Chaudhri, Advocate for the petitioners. None for the respondent. ******* 1. Whether Reporters of Local papers may be allowed to see the judgment? 2. To be referred to the Reporters or not? 3. Whether the judgment should be reported in the Digest? ******* SURYA KANT, J. (ORAL) The petitioners seek quashing of the order dated 07.05.2010 (Annexure P-9) passed by the Sub Divisional Magistrate, Ludhiana-cum- Appellate Authority under the Indian Electricity Act, 2003, whereby the appeal preferred by the respondent against three orders dated 12.10.2009 (Annexures P-6 to P-8) raising a demand of ` 2,09,020/-, ` 65,470/- and ` 2640/- respectively has been allowed in part to the extent that the 1/3rd amount deposited by the respondent at the time of filing of his appeal has been allowed to be retained by the petitioners but they have been restrained from raising further demand from the respondent. Briefly stated the facts are that the respondent is having three electricity connections, out of which, one is 'commercial' and the other two fall under the 'domestic' category. On a surprise checking conducted by the Civil Writ Petition No.20032 of 2010 -2- enforcement staff on 03.08.2009, the respondent was allegedly found using the domestic connections for commercial purposes. Show Cause Notices were issued and after holding the respondent guilty for committing theft of electricity that the impugned recovery orders were passed. As notice earlier on an appeal by the respondent, these recovery orders have been modified by the Appellate Authority after observing as follows:- “I have examined the case file and considered contentions put forth by learned counsel for both the parties. I find that on one side, the appellant has produced no evidence to show that he has been honest in the use of electricity at his Research Centre as well as at his residential premises and did not commit theft of electricity, as alleged by the P.S.E.B. of that the notices issued to him by the PSEB were wrong. On the other hand, the PSEB officials have also failed to prove on record that when they detected the appellant using electricity illegally by way of kundi, they took any wire in their possession which was used by the appellant for that purpose or they look any photographs regarding illegal use of electricity. Finding this lacuna on the part of the appellant, as well as the PSEB in the interest of justice, I partly accept this appeal and order that the PSEB will not claim any more amount from the appellant and the appellant will also not claim refund of the amount which he has deposited with the PSEB for filing this appeal.” The aggrieved Corporation and its Executive Engineer have now approached this Court. As per the Office report the service is complete. No one appears on behalf of the respondent. It is urged on behalf of the petitioners that the Appellate Authority has over-looked the records while observing that the electricity board officials failed to prove that they had taken any wire in their possession or took photographs of the illegal supply of electricity from domestic to Civil Writ Petition No.20032 of 2010 -3- commercial purposes by the respondent. Learned counsel points out that the theft of electricity committed by the respondent by using 'kundi' was duly photographed along with the wires by the board officials. The photographs have been produced and perused during the course of hearing. Having gone through the record, I am of the considered view that the observations made by the Appellate Authority are wholly unwarranted and it has apparently over-looked the material on record. The impugned appellate order dated 07.05.2010 (Annexure P-9) to the extent it disallowed the petitioners to recover any additional amount from the respondent is accordingly set aside and the matter is remitted to the Appellate Authority to decide the same afresh and re-determine as to why the petitioners are not entitled to recover the entire amount from the respondent. The appropriate order shall be passed after giving notice to the respondent, within a period of three months from the date of receiving a certified copy of this order. Dasti. 27.01.2011 (SURYA KANT) Gagan JUDGE