Regular Second Appeal No.466 of 2009 -1- IN THE HIGH COURT OF PUNJAB AND HARYANA AT CHANDIGARH Regular Second Appeal No.466 of 2009 Date of decision: November 13, 2009 Ramesh Kumar …..APPELLANT Versus Haryana Vidhyut Parsaran Nigam Ltd. and others …..RESPONDENTS CORAM: HON’BLE MR JUSTICE T.P.S.MANN PRESENT: Mr Sandeep Chhabra, Advocate T.P.S.MANN, J. The plaintiff is before this Court by way of second appeal against the judgments and decrees passed by the learned Courts below, whereby his suit for declaration and mandatory injunction was dismissed. According to the plaintiff, he was using electricity connection No.M3-1245 for his flour mill for the last 10 years. On 24.3.2001, the electricity connection was inspected by Vigilance Department, S.D.O. Samalkha, Junior Engineer and others. At the time of inspection, which was carried out for half an hour by working the flour mill the meter was running. Since the meter was old, there was mud on it. The defendants used screw driver on the body of the meter to remove the mud, as a result whereof, a hole was made in it. The Regular Second Appeal No.466 of 2009 -2- defendants took away the meter and wire with them in the presence of Anil Bansal, M.C. Samalkha and gave a copy of the inspection report to the mother of the plaintiff. Thereafter, he received notice dated 26.3.2001, whereby a bill of Rs.88,577/- was raised. The plaintiff, accordingly, sought declaration that the notice dated 26.3.2001 and inspection report dated 24.3.2001 were illegal and not binding upon his rights. He also sought the relief of mandatory injunction requiring the defendants to cancel the said bill of Rs.88,577/- and the surcharge thereon and also for direction to the defendants for restoration of his electricity connection. The defendants filed their joint written statement, stating therein that on 24.3.2001, the Assistant Director Vigilance, UHBVN, Karnal alongwith other staff checked the connection in question. The meter was found tampered with, as the lace wires of all the four M & T seals were found cut, reinserted back in the respective holes and thereafter duly pressed. A hole was also found deliberately made in the body of the meter of the said connection. The meter disc did not move on two phases when checked and thus, it was not registering actual consumption. Total load of 11.530 K.W was found connected with electricity supply system of the Nigam. As it was a case of theft of electricity, the plaintiff was liable to pay the prescribed compensation to the tune of Rs.88,577/- to the Nigam. The plaintiff was also given notice dated 26.3.2001 regarding assessment and hearing, but he refused to acknowledge the same. His appeal was pending. Hence, he was neither entitled for restoration of the supply, nor the defendants were liable to restore the same without deposit of the compensation amount. Regular Second Appeal No.466 of 2009 -3- In order to establish that it were the officials of the defendants, who themselves created hole in his electricity meter while removing the dust with the help of a screw driver, the plaintiff had examined himself as PW-1, his mother Shanti Devi as PW-2 and Anil Bansal, M.C. Samalkha as PW-3. Apparently, the testimonies of the plaintiff himself as well as his mother Shanti Devi can be termed as these of the interested persons. Though Anil Bansal, M.C. Samalkha PW- 3 is an independent and respectable person, yet he signed on the inspection report, wherein it stood mentioned that a hole was found in the meter. If such a hole was created by the officials of the defendants while removing the dust with the help of a screw driver, he could have mentioned this fact in the inspection report. His failure to do so at the time of his signing the inspection report goes a long way to show that he has been won over by the plaintiff subsequently and for that reason he deposed in his favour. On the other hand, the defendants relied upon the testimonies of DW-3 Palvinder Kumar, S.D.O, who deposed that during the course of checking of the premises of the plaintiff, it was found that the disc of the meter did not move on red and blue phases of the meter, when checked on individual phase with 2.00 K.W. heater load. The meter was not recording electricity consumption on two phases out of three phases. The lace wires of all M & T seals were found cut, reinserted back in the respective holes and duly pressed. A hole on the meter body on the upper portion was also found to have been deliberately made. Thus, the plaintiff was found committing theft of electricity energy. He also deposed that the inspection/checking report dated 24.3.2001 was prepared at the site, which was voluntarily signed by the Regular Second Appeal No.466 of 2009 -4- representatives of the plaintiff i.e. Ved Parkash and Smt Shanti Devi and witnessed by Anil Bansal, M.C. Samalkha. DW-1 Prabhu Dayal and DW-2 S.C.Pasricha fully corroborated the version of Palvinder Kumar, S.D.O. DW-3. The stand of the plaintiff that the witnesses of the defendants admitted about the electricity meter in question having not been tested from any Laboratory is of no consequence, as the electricity meter was found to be having a hole and the plaintiff miserably failed to prove that the said hole was made by the officials of the defendants. This hole was visible to the naked eye. There was no internal defect in the electricity meter and therefore, non-examination of the meter in the Laboratory was not fatal to the case of the defendants. The findings arrived at by the learned Courts below are based upon correct appreciation of the material evidence available on the record. Neither these findings are perverse, nor do they suffer from any illegality or infirmity. As such, they cannot be reversed and that too, in a second appeal, which is maintainable only on some substantial question of law and not otherwise. The various substantial questions of law, as framed by the appellant, do not arise for determination. Resultantly, the appeal is dismissed in limine . November 13, 2009 (T.P.S.MANN) Pds. JUDGE