Court No. - 29
Case :- WRIT - C No. - 2573 of 2019 Petitioner :- Neetu Jain @ Nitin Jain @ Nitesh Jain Respondent :- State Of U P And 2 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Vidit Narayan Mishra Counsel for Respondent :- C.S.C.,Chandan Agarwal
Hon'ble Pankaj Mithal,J. Hon'ble Rohit Ranjan Agarwal,J.
Heard learned counsel for the petitioner and Sri Chandan Agarwal, learned counsel for the respondent No.2.
The petitioner has come up in this petition against the demand notice dated 04.08.2018 whereby a sum of Rs.10,85,007/- is sought to be recovered from him as electricity dues on account of theft of electricity.
The submission is that in regard to the said theft of electricity an FIR was lodged against the petitioner which was challenged in Criminal Misc. Writ Petition No.10872 of 2018. It was disposed of vide order dated 30.04.2018 and the petitioner was permitted to move application for the compounding of the offence.
The respondents without considering the compounding and without serving any bill or assessment order has issued that impugned demand notice.
The compounding of the offence of theft of electricity is altogether different from the proceedings for recovering of the electricity dues on account of the alleged theft. Therefore, non consideration of compounding does not affect the realisation of the electricity dues.
In respect of the alleged theft of electricity a provisional assessment was done and as the petitioner failed to submit any objection against the said assessment it was deemed to have been finalised. Accordingly, impugned demand notice was issued. Even against the final assessment the petitioner had a remedy filing an appeal under Section 127 of the Electricity Act, 2003.
In view of the aforesaid statutory remedy available to the petitioner, we are of the opinion that this writ petition requires no interference.
Accordingly, the writ petition is dismissed with liberty to the petitioner to take recourse to the remedy as may be advised to him in law.
Order Date :- 29.1.2019 piyush