Case Law Details
Jharkhand State Electricity Board Vs Ramkrishna Forging Limited (Supreme Court of India)
It is noteworthy that the Jharkhand State Electricity Board (‘the Board’) is a monopoly supplier of electricity which has laid down its own terms and conditions, regarding which the consumer has no say or choice but to sign on the dotted lines, if it wants of get electricity load varied for running its industry. The Board is an instrumentality of the State. It has to be fair and reasonable. If the Regulations provide for contract load to be varied even through a written communication, then in our considered view, in all fairness, though fresh agreements may have been executed at the stage of enhancement of load of the same electricity connection, the same cannot be treated as anything but an extension/amendment or modification of the initial agreement granting the electricity connection, which in the present case would be the agreement dated 14.04.2004. On the dictates of the Board, the consumer may have been required to sign fresh agreements for each enhancement of load, but the enhancement being for the same electricity connection which still continues, it would merely be amendment of the initial agreement. This would also be in consonance with the provisions of the Regulations of 2005, which have to be liberally interpreted in favour of the consumer.
Reverting to the order dated 08.11.2007, which was impugned in the writ petition, we are of the opinion that the Board has gone wrong in treating the application dated 20.09.2007 of the respondent for reduction of load to be that for determination of the agreement under Clause 9B of the agreement, which application, in fact, ought to have been considered under Regulation 9.2 of the Regulations of 2005. Further, we are unable to accept the submission of the learned Counsel for the appellant that the application of the respondent for reduction of load was within the period of three years, because as we have discussed hereinabove, the agreement to be considered in the present case is the initial agreement dated 14.04.2004 and not the subsequent agreement dated 07.07.2007.
FULL TEXT OF THE SUPREME COURT JUDGMENT/ORDER
The respondent is a small scale industry. For running its industry, it had a contract demand/ sanctioned load of electricity of 4000 KVA from the appellants Jharkhand State Electricity Board (for short ‘the Board’). The request of the respondent for reduction of such sanctioned load to 1325 KVA having been refused, the respondent filed a writ petition before the High Court of Jharkhand, which has been allowed. Aggrieved by the said judgment of the High Court, this appeal has been preferred by the Board.
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