India News | Licensee Entitled to Raise Demand if Consumer Found Short-billed: SC
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. The Supreme Court Tuesday said that a licensee is entitled to raise a demand if it finds that a consumer has been short-billed.
New Delhi, Oct 5 (PTI) The Supreme Court Tuesday said that a licensee is entitled to raise a demand if it finds that a consumer has been short-billed.
The apex court made the observation in its judgement while dismissing an appeal filed against an order of the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) which had rejected a complaint against an electricity distribution company.
The electricity distribution company had served a memo in 2009 to a firm, engaged in the business of manufacturing cotton yarn in Haryana, claiming that there was a short billing of Rs 1.35 crore as the multiplying factor was wrongly recorded in the bill.
As the electricity distribution company asked it to pay the amount, the firm approached the NCDRC alleging that the demand made was the outcome of “a glaring mistake and gross negligence” on their part.
The NCDRC, in its October 2009 order, dismissed the consumer complaint on the ground that it was a case of “escaped assessment” and not a case of “deficiency in service”.
The firm had thereafter approached the apex court against the commission's order.
A bench of justices Hemant Gupta and V Ramasubramanian said that raising of additional demand in the form of “short assessment notice” on the ground that in the bills raised during a particular period, the multiply factor was wrongly mentioned, cannot be tantamount to deficiency in service.
“If a licensee discovers in the course of audit or otherwise that a consumer has been short-billed, the licensee is certainly entitled to raise demand. So long as the consumer does not dispute the correctness of the claim made by the licensee that there was short assessment, it is not open to the consumer to claim that there was any deficiency,” the bench said.
“Therefore, we are of the view that the National Commission was justified in rejecting the complaint and we find no reason to interfere with the order of the national commission. Accordingly, the appeal is dismissed,” it said.
The bench noted that the appellant had never disputed the correctness of the claim of the electricity distribution company that the multiplying factor to be applied was 10, but it was wrongly applied as 5.
It said the appellant had already paid 50 per cent of the demand amount according to an interim order passed by the apex court in August 2014.
The bench granted eight weeks' time to the appellant to make payment of the balance amount.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)