1. The present appeal is filed by the original opponent MSEDCL Amravati (Now called appellant for brevity) aggrieved by the order of the Amravati Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum dated 6/10/2006 passed in complaint no. 1/97. The Forum granted the complaint and ordered the appellant to provide a revised Bill in place of old issued bill and also issue the bill at the rate of 150 Units per month for six month, totaling to 900 Units and not to add any interest upon it, not to include in any another bill, also to deduct the amount whatever might have been paid by the respondent. To obey the entire directions within the period of one month.
2. The facts in short are that the respondent is a Consumer of Electricity of the appellant. He was paying the bills of Electricity as were given to him. As he did not receive the proper bills he made a complaint to appellant on 12/1/96. Then on15/6/1996 he suddenly received a bill of Electricity of Rs. 32652/-. The respondent made a complaint to recorrect the bill but as the appellant did nothing, the respondent filed complaint vide no. 1/97 before the District Forum.
3. The appellant appeared before the Forum and contended that in response to the complaint of the respondent dated 12/01/96, they investigated and inspected the meter of the respondent on 17/01/96. In the course of inquiry of the complaint of respondent, the appellant found that they had billed the respondent on average billing till 8/94 to reading of 1270.From 08/94 to 11/94, the meter advanced to reading of 1338 units, when the appellant inspected the meter,on17/01/96, they found the meter at the reading of 14871 units. Therefore the appellant then inspected the account sheet of the meter and finding a lacuna, in the readings, recorrected the account. Then giving proper credit of paid bill, gave a bill of consumed energy to the respondent which was Rs. 32,652/-
4. The appellant submitted the meter account sheet. The appellant tried to justify that the respondent was charged the bill at the rate of average units but when found that he had consumed much more of energy as per the meter reading, issued him appropriate bill. The appellant denied any deficiency of service and requested for dismissal of the complaint.
5. The Forum heard the parties, inspected the Consumer meter account sheet. The Forum found that the appellants, issuing of the bill, when the respondent was regularly paying the bill is, indication of carelessness and illogical. The appellant adjusted the meter readings by adjusting the period from 08/92 to 10/94 and 10/94 to 08/95 totaling 36 months. The appellant levied the bill of Rs. 38699.67/- and deducting the credit of already paid amount of Rs. 17078.41 prepared a bill of Rs. 29463.50/-. But the bill did exhibit the details as to how the appellant did calculations. Therefore the bill was ambiguous.
6. The Forum held that when the meter was running correctly without fault, when the respondent was paying the bill regularly, such issuing of the bill is illegal and unjustifiable. Therefore the Forum refused to accept the contention of the appellant and thought that it based on wrong and false footing.
7. The Forum thus did not accept the bill and opined that the appellant could not prove that the respondent had not paid the bill for the period from 1992 to 1995. The Forum opined that it would be illegal to collect the arrears of such nature for the period more than 6 months. The Forum therefore attributed deficiency of service to the appellant and decided that the appellant is responsible for the mental agony to the respondent. The Forum therefore gave the order as above.
8. We heard the party’s advocates as above, perused the consumer account sheet maintained by the appellant which is not filed under appropriate affidavit of the maintaining official.
9. We perused the complaint of the respondent dated 12/01/96, submitted by the appellant. The complaint is on the printed proforma of the appellant. It indicates that it was the respondent who first came to the appellant with complaint of inappropriate billing. It only started the whole process of inspection and then calculation of bill by the appellant.
10. We saw the inspection report dated 17/01/96 which shows that
1. The meter no. is 243899.
2. The reading is 17254.
3. The seal is OK.
4. The meter working is OK
11. It also shows that there are four bulbs, one fan, one plug, one television. There is a second inspection report of 18/06/97 which shows the consumption of electricity to be 10720 units per month and the reading is 19,106.
12. These reports are submitted by the appellant only. This clearly indicates that the respondent is a poor person with no heavy consumption of electricity. He himself went to the appellant with request. The appellant only appears to have levied the bill to appropriate the loss but do not appear to have appropriately justified by a cogent enquiry, inspection, calculation and reasoning. Only submitting a haphazardly written sheet of account and equally sketchy written inspection note, would certainly not go to justify that the billing and calculations are correct. It would also be unjustifiable to attribute the consumption to the respondent only on the basis of entries made in the inspection report. We find that the appellant has not done any logical enquiry in the complaint of the respondent dated 12/01/96 to come to the conclusion regarding correct billing of the respondent and his correct consumption of electricity energy. In the absence of such cogent reasoning and calculation we are not inclined to accept the conclusion of the appellant.
13. The appellant has filed a Judgment of National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission in A- 520/1995, MSEB Vs. Swastic Industries in which while setting aside the Judgment of the State Commission, the Hon’ble National Commission has observed that “ However the inefficiency of the functionaries of the appellants deplorable though, it is, cannot and should not be made a ground to cause a loss to a public utility concern. In any case raising of a bill for the Electricity consumed however belated cannot be termed as a deficiency in service ”.
14. In the present case we find that the respondent in his prayer has requested for appropriate bill and has not prayed for the cancellation of it in totally. He therefore is prepared to pay the correct changes.
15. We also find that the Forum has also directed for the improved and corrected bill but has ordered to issue a bill at the rate of 150 units per month for six months, which also do not appear to be based on sound footing. Hence the order appears to be without any reason.
16. We have perused the chart submitted by the appellant. This chart shows the calculation of the bill by the appellant when we examined it we found that there is one column no. 6 which gives the bare charges of the energy without any duty. FCA, DPC and interest on arrears. The chart also shows that the appellant has given the credit of the paid amount to the respondent but has continued to levy the interest charges upon the arrears which we find not appropriate in when the respondent was paying regularly and the appellant had failed to give him correct bill. We therefore in the light of the Judgment of the National Consumer Commission referred supra are inclined to permit the bare energy charges of the consumed electricity, to be recovered from the respondent.
17. We calculated those charges from chart column no. 6 to be 39907.50/-. Giving the benefit of credit for the paid bill to the respondent we find it to be reasonable to deduct Rs. 17079.41/- which the respondent has already paid. Thus the final amount that comes is Rs. 22828.90/- which we find to be reasonable as energy charges to be recovered from the respondent.
18. Hence as discussed above and for the reasons stated we pass the order as below.
ORDER
1. The appeal is partly allowed.
2. The order of the Forum dated 6/10/2006 is modified as below.
a) The appellant to give the bill of pure/actual consumption of electricity by the respondent as is shown in the column no. 6 of the consumer ledger-i.e.Rs.22828.90 paisa.
3. The respondent to pay the bill in 30 days positively and if delayed beyond with the interest at the rate of 9% from the date of this order.
4. The copy of the order be provided to both parties free of cost.
