- (1.) THIS appeal, under Section 15 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, has been preferred by the appellants -opposite parties against the order dated 03.04.2013 passed by the District Forum, Haridwar in consumer complaint No. 199 of 2012, thereby the District Forum has allowed the consumer complaint and cancelled the notice in dispute and has directed the opposite parties -Electricity Department not to take any charge from the complainant and not to disconnect the electricity connection of the complainant in future on the basis of the disputed notice.
(2.) BRIEFLY stated the facts of the case, as mentioned in the consumer complaint, are that the complainant Sh. Rakesh Kumar Goel is a consumer of the opposite parties -Electricity Department and had taken an electricity connection No. 696/0801/093102 of 20 KW for his hotel namely Hotel Balaji at Bhupatnagar for his livelihood and paid the electricity bills regularly. It is alleged that on 28.06.2012 some officers and employees of Electricity Department came to complainant's premises (Hotel) and inspected the electricity connection, alleging false charge of electricity theft and overloading, taken away the electricity meter with them without giving any receipt. On 03.07.2012, the complainant's son went to the lab of the Electricity Department at Dehradun, where it was disclosed that the seal of the said meter is O.K. and no theft of electricity is found. The complainant was surprised by a notice dated 05.07.2012, which was sent by the opposite party No. 1 to the complainant that the meter was tampered and the complainant was using excess electricity. According to the complainant, the above notice is illegal and quite different from the lab report, because in the lab report no shunt was found in the meter. The complainant also said that prior to this, a notice of Rs. 10,00,000/ - was issued against the complainant, which was finally revised to Rs. 7,50,742/ - and the same was not according to the rule. According to the notice dated 05.07.2012, overloading of 8.29 KW was shown, which is wrong because according to the Electricity Department's Rule, the premise where geyser and A.C. are installed, then only one's load will be calculated. During checking, only 8 A.C.'s were identified. On rechecking and report of S.D.O. -opposite party No. 2, one A.C. was found of 1800 Watt, so total load of A.C.'s were calculated 14.400 Watt. If the load of the geyser was 9KW and load of A.C. was 3.200 Watt, then it was total 12.200 Watt, which is deducted from the load of checking report 31.490 Watt, so it is equal to 19.290 Watt. It is an ideal load which does not raise the dispute of excess load. So the opposite party issued a notice on false and frivolous facts, which comes under unfair trade practice. Thus, there is deficiency in service on the part of the Electricity Department, therefore, the complainant filed a consumer complaint before the District Forum, Haridwar.
(3.) THE opposite parties have filed written statement before the District Forum, Haridwar and pleaded that the complainant was found making theft of electricity for which Rs. 7,50,742/ - was imposed on the complainant. They further stated that the officers and employees of the Electricity Department never gave any assurance to the complainant that the meter was O.K. and did not found electricity theft. They further stated that the complainant was using the electricity for commercial purpose and running a hotel, so the Consumer Fora has no jurisdiction to hear and decide the consumer complaint. The District Forum, on an appreciation of the material on record, allowed the consumer complaint vide impugned order dated 03.04.2013. Aggrieved by the said order, the opposite parties have filed the present appeal.;