Electricity suppliers are known to be high-handed and resort to many tricks to con the consumers into paying ‘unwarranted’ bills or dues.
Electricity suppliers are known to be high-handed and resort to many tricks to con the consumers into paying ‘unwarranted’ bills or dues. One of the common tricks is to say that the meter installed in the premises is defective and then proceed to bill the client on average or on assumed basis for the previous months.
Though this has the backing of law, the provision cannot be arbitrarily used by electricity suppliers. The amount being demanded must be reasonable and shown to be justified by actual consumption, says the Kerala State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in The Assistant Executive Engineer and others vs MK George.
George was running an industrial unit in Kottayam district of Kerala and used to draw electricity from the local electricity board. He paid his bills regularly and his site was visited periodically by the electrical inspector of the area. Over time, his old static meter was replaced by an electronic meter.
Soon thereafter, he received a bill from the electricity board saying that he would have to pay an additional sum of Rs36,693 for additional electricity consumed in the six-month period prior to the installation of the electronic meter. The reason given was that the electronic meter was showing a higher consumption and the previous static meter was ‘defective’.
The matter finally landed in the Consumer Dispute Redressal Forum at Kottayam. George said that the bill for the extraneous amount be withdrawn by the board and that no penal action be taken on him. The board, on the other hand, stated that the old meter was defective and the new electronic one showed a significantly higher consumption of electricity in the same premises every month and under Sec. 31 (c) of the State Electricity Act, the board had a right to recover the dues from the client in such cases.
The District Forum accepted the contentions of the consumer and set aside the extra billed amount. Aggrieved by this order, the electricity board went in appeal to the State Commission. It made a plea that in such cases where the meter was defective, the board had no other method of recovering dues.
The commission observed that there was no mention that the meter was changed because it was defective; on the contrary, it appeared this was a routine change due to technological advances. Finding no merit in the appeal, the commission dismissed the same.
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