Court No. - 40
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 16795 of 2009 Petitioner :- Chandra Prasad Singh Respondent :- State Of U.P. And Others Counsel for Petitioner :- B.K. Singh Raghuvanshi Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,H.P. Dube
Hon'ble Amreshwar Pratap Sahi,J. Hon'ble Shashi Kant,J.
Heard Sri Raghuvanshi, learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Ravi Anand Agarwal holding brief of Sri Mehboob Ahmad, learned counsel for the respondent-Electricity Department.
The petitioner has challenged a bill of an electricity connection which indicates that the metre was connected in the premises of the petitioner on 1st January, 1900. Learned counsel submits that there was no such electricity connection in existence and the electricity connection which had been taken by the father of the petitioner was permanently disconnected on 12th August, 1996 for which documents have been placed on record.
The writ petition was entertained and the respondents were called upon to file a counter affidavit with a further direction that no coercive steps shall be taken pursuant to the impugned bill.
No counter affidavit has been filed till today nor any of the facts stated in the writ petition have been controverted and nine years have passed by.
In the aforesaid background, we find no reason to keep the matter pending, and in the event a possible dispute can now be adjudicated after a lapse of such a long period of time, in that event, it will be open to the Executive Engineer to take any appropriate action in terms of Clause-6.5 of the Electricity Code, 2005. It shall be open to the petitioner to take objections with regard to laches, if any, on the part of the Executive Engineer, in case he so chooses to proceed.
The Electricity Department shall not proceed to take any action without putting the petitioner to notice and considering any objections in case any adjudication is required.
With the aforesaid observations, the writ petition stands disposed of.
Order Date :- 26.4.2018 S.Chaurasia