NEW DELHI: The Delhi state consumer commission has held BSES Rajdhani Power guilty of deficiency in service for taking more than five years to provide an electricity connection to a consumer who had already paid the required charges. The commission on July 17 said BSES could not prove it had ever informed the consumer about the alleged discrepancy in his application and therefore could not blame him for the delay.Why was the electricity connection delayed for over five years?As per the court order, Manish Kumar Gupta, a resident of Greater Kailash in New Delhi, had applied for an electricity connection in June 2002 for a property in Vishwakarma Colony, Lal Kuan, and deposited Rs 1,375 as charges. Despite repeatedly approaching BSES and even sending a legal notice in December 2006, he did not receive the connection until August 22, 2007. Alleging deficiency in service, he then approached the consumer forum seeking compensation for the delay.However, the power company argued that the consumer had mentioned an incorrect address in his application, because of which the premises could not be located during the time of inspection.It further claimed that several letters and notices were issued between November 2002 and May 2003 asking him to identify the correct property and complete the formalities, but he failed to respond to that either. According to the company, the consumer submitted a fresh application only in May 2007, after which the connection was released.Why did the commission hold BSES liable?The bench comprising President Justice Sangita Dhingra Sehgal and Judicial Member Pinki noted that the consumer had applied for the connection in 2002 and received it only after five years. But it found that BSES had no proof that the letters it claimed to have sent were ever actually delivered to the consumer.“No postal receipts, dispatch register, acknowledgment due card or any other document proving their service has been produced. Therefore, merely filing copies of these letters is not sufficient to establish that the Respondent was informed about the alleged discrepancies or was asked to complete any further formalities,” the commission said.The commission said that even if there was a mistake in the application, it was BSES’s job to tell the consumer about it and give him a chance to fix it. Since BSES could not prove it ever did this, it could not put the blame on the consumer for the delay.“Once the Respondent had applied for an electricity connection and deposited the prescribed charges, it was the Appellant’s responsibility to process the application in accordance with law and properly inform the Respondent of any defects or further requirements,” it said.The commission also rejected BSES’s argument that the consumer had hidden facts or that the delay happened because of its own lawyer’s negligence. Finding no evidence to back these claims, it concluded that BSES had no satisfactory explanation for why it took over five years to give the consumer a simple electricity connection.“We find no infirmity in the findings recorded by the District Forum. However, considering that the interest awarded on the compensation is on the higher side, the impugned order warrants modification only to the limited extent of reducing the rate of interest from 10 per cent per annum to 6 per cent per annum,” the commission said.Accordingly, the commission upheld the Rs 30,000 compensation and Rs 10,000 litigation costs awarded by the district forum and directed BSES to pay within 45 days. If it fails to do so, the amount will carry 9 per cent annual interest until it is actually paid.
