Court No. - 43 Case :- CRIMINAL MISC. WRIT PETITION No. - 4835 of 2019 Petitioner :- Nitin Agrawal Respondent :- State Of U.P. And 5 Others Counsel for Petitioner :- Ranjit Saxena Counsel for Respondent :- G.A.
Hon'ble Pankaj Naqvi,J. Hon'ble Umesh Kumar,J.
Heard Sri Ranjit Saxena, learned counsel for the petitioner, Sri Chandan Agarwal, learned counsel for the Power Corporation and the learned A.G.A.
This writ petition has been field with a prayer to issue a writ, order or direction in the nature of certiorari quashing the F.I.R. dated 13.1.2019, in Case Crime No.0022/2019 under Section 135(1)(e) of the Indian Electricity Act 2003, P.S. Noida, Sector-58, District Gautam Budh Nagar.
The F.I.R, alleges that petitioner a LMV consumer (domestic) of the Power Corporation, with a sanctioned load of 7 K.W, is running a private hostel which under the tariff is covered under LMV-2 (non-domestic light, fan and power) is committing theft of electricity.
Section 135(1)(e) of the Electricity Act, 2005 is re- produced hereunder:
Section 135. Theft of Electricity (1) Whoever, dishonestly, (e) uses electricity for the purpose other than for which the usage of electricity was authorised, so as to abstract or consume or use electricity shall be punishable with imprisonment for a term which may extent to three years or with fine or with both:
The contention raised on behalf of the petitioner is that providing boarding/lodging facility to the students would only constitute "a paying guest facility" which would attract the rate schedule of L.M.V-1.
We find from the approved tariff (Annexure-1) that inter-alia LMV-2 is made applicable to private guest houses, private transit hostels and private student hostels.
In the absence of any challenge to the applicability of the particular tarrif before the competent authority, this court in this jurisdiction has to only go by the allegations made in the F.I.R, the contention raised is repelled.
Learned counsel for the petitioner in the alternate submitted that as the offence is compoundable, he be permitted to get the matter compounded in accordance with law, as the petitioner undertakes to deposit the compounded amount which is not objected by Shri Chandan Agarwal, learned counsel for the Power Corporation.
Considering the submission made by the learned counsel for the petitioner, it is directed that in case the petitioner files an application before the authority concerned within 3 weeks from today for compounding the offence, the authority concerned of the Power Corporation shall be summoned by the court concerned within two weeks thereafter for the purpose of submitting a compounding report.
The authority concerned shall submit the compounding report within 15 days thereafter. The petitioner shall deposit the compounded amount within three weeks thereafter. Upon receipt of the compounding report, the authority concerned shall pass appropriate orders within a further period of three weeks.
In case the petitioner deposits the compounded amount in the manner as mentioned above, the petitioner shall not be arrested in the aforesaid case for a period of three months from today. In default of either of the aforesaid conditions, it shall be open for the Investigating Officer to proceed in accordance with law.
Ordered accordingly.
Order Date :- 28.2.2019 RS