Legal matter {with outlines}

Legal matter

The appellants defendants are in regular Second Appeal against the concurrent findings of the Civil Court at Kaithal dated 14 October 2019 whereby the suit of the plaintiff-respondent was decreed and against the decision of the Lower Appellate Court dated 19 Feb 2020 vide which the appeal was also dismissed. Counsel for the appellants has vehemently submitted that the Courts below were in error in decreeing the suit as the jurisdiction of the Civil Court was barred and the proceedings under Section 135 of 80 the Electricity Act, 2003 for short the Act had been initiated against the respondent consumer.

On a perusal of the record, this Court is of the opinion that no substantial question of law arises for consideration in the present Regular Second Appeal. The facts would go on to show that for checking done the notice had been issued as electricity assessment charges for Rs.8000/- as compounding fees on the compounding of the alleged theft. Same were challenged by the plaintiff  on the ground that no opportunity of hearing was given to him and the meter was installed outside the premises of the plaintiff and he had already installed solar energy equipment in his premises and he was using solar energy.

The defence of the present appellants was that on checking, it was found that the load shown was running through the meter and load shown was connected directly by passing the meter and thus, the total connected load against the sanctioned load of 500 KW. The plaintiff had refused to put his signatures upon the checking report and resultantly, both demands were issued and letter had also been written to the SHO Jind for lodging the FIR against the plaintiff for using the electricity dishonestly by committing direct theft.

On the framing of the issues the Trial Court very (succinctly) examined the provisions of the Act to came to the conclusion that Section 126 on one hand and the provisions of Section 135 are distinct and different and operate in different fields and have no common premise in law. Reliance was rightly placed upon the judgment of the Apex Court in The Executive Engineer & another. The relevant portions of the judgment read as under. Upon their plain reading, the mark differences in the contents of Sections 126 of the 2003 Act are obvious. They are distinct and different provisions which operate in different fields and have no common  premise in law.