IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT PATNA LPA No.1049 of 2010 1. KEDAR PRASAD s/o Late Bharat Prasad r/o Flat no.8/46, 7 H F, H I G, Bahadurpur Housing Colony, PS Agamkuan, District Patna 2. Madhuri Devi Sinha w/o Late Prem Narayan Sinha, resident of Mohalla Maharaj Ghat, PS Khaja Kalan, District Patna ..... Petitioners/Appellants Versus 1. THE BIHAR STATE ELECTRICITY BOARD through its Chairman, Bailey Road, Patna 2. The Superintending Engineer, East, PESU Circle, Patna -4 3. The Electrical Executive Engineer, Electricity Supply Undertaking, Patna City, Gurhatta, Mittan Ghat, Patna 4. The Assistant Electrical Engineer, Revenue and Supply, Gurhatta, Mittan Ghat, Patna ....... Respondents ----------- 02- 23/6/2011 Mr. Mani Bhushan Kumar no.I for the appellants, and Mr. Vinay Kirti Singh for respondent nos. 1 to 4, are present. Learned counsel for the appellant submits that respondent no.5, partner of appellant no.1, has inadvertently been impleaded as a party respondent. He prays to transpose her to the category of appellants. Learned counsel for the respondents has no objection to the same. Let the name of respondent no.5 be expunged and be transposed as appellant no.2. Duly executed Vakalatnama of the newly-added appellant has just now been filed. 2. Heard learned counsel for the parties. This appeal under clause 10 of the letters patent of the High Court of Judicature of Patna has been preferred by the petitioners of CWJC No.5319 of 2003, and are aggrieved by the order dated 15.4.2010, whereby the writ petition has been dismissed, and the bills raised by the Bihar State Electricity Board (hereinafter referred to as `the Board’), for consumption of electricity by the petitioners have been upheld. 2 3. A brief statement of facts essential for the disposal of this appeal may be indicated. The petitioners are the consumers of electricity from the Board having LTIS connection bearing consumer A/c no. 22-284, 15561. They had originally taken connection for 3 HP load which was subsequently enhanced to 10 HP on the application of the appellants. The Anti-power Theft Team of the Board had made an inspection of the premises of the petitioners on 30.8.99, and found the connected load to be of 17 HP, instead of 10 HP. The inspection report was signed by the brother of appellant no.1. This led to two bills, both dated 29.9.2001, for Rs.49,172/-, and Rs.56,189/-, which have been raised as per the inspection report and 17 HP load. The appellants, therefore, preferred the aforesaid writ petition with the prayer to quash the inspection report dt. 30.8.99, and to quash the two bills of 29.9.2001. 4. Learned counsel for the appellants submits before us, as was submitted before the learned writ court, that the brother of appellant no.1 is completely unconnected with the affairs of the appellants and, therefore, his signature on the inspection report was unauthorized and, therefore, could not have been taken into account for the purpose of preparing the impugned bills. The contention has been rejected by the learned Single Judge. 5. We have perused the materials on record and considered the submissions of the learned counsel for the parties. The admitted position is that, as per the agreement inter- parties, the appellants have been sanctioned supply of electricity of 10 HP load. Therefore, they could not have availed of the benefit of higher HP 3 load. If they do so, they will have to pay as per the tariff in force. In so far as the objection of the appellants as to the validity of the inspection report on the aforesaid ground is concerned, the same is stated only to be rejected. The learned Single Judge has held that this objection was not raised on the spot, and has not been raised ever thereafter, and has for the first time been raised in the writ proceeding. This being an after-thought on the part of the appellants, we agree with the view taken by the learned Single Judge. Furthermore, learned counsel for the respondents has rightly relied on the judgment of a Division Bench of this Court in BSEB vs. M/s Sri Bir Ispat [1999 (1) PLJR 466], wherein it has been held that the Board officials are empowered to inspect the consumer’s premises without advance notice in order to find out/detect unauthorized load and other irregularities in consumption of electricity. The inspection must be made in the presence of the consumer or his representative. If they are either not available or not willing to co-operate, it will be open to carry on inspection in presence of some independent persons and other employees of the Board. In the instant case, the brother of appellant must be treated to be representative of appellant no.1. 6. In the result, we do not find any merit in this appeal. It is accordingly dismissed. ( S K Katriar ) ( Amaresh Kumar Lal ) mrl 4