Archana Adhikari v. W.B. State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd. & ORS
ML362 March2025 20.03.2025 Court No.19 SK
IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA
CONSTITUTIONAL WRIT JURISDICTION WPA 3677 of 2020 Smt. Archana Adhikari Vs.
West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd. & Ors.
Mr. Pratip Mukherjee, Mr. Sumalya Chakraborty, Mr. Purnankar Biswas ... for the Petitioner.
Mr. Srijan Nayak, Mrs. Rituparna Maitra ...for the W.B.S.E.D.C.L.
The report as directed by the order dated January 06, 2025 is filed on behalf of the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited; let it be kept with the record.
The petitioner is a consumer having Consumer I.D. No. 152108600 under the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited ('distribution company' in short).
The petitioner had raised a dispute with regard to the bills for the months of October 2018 to December 2018.
The dispute was referred to the Regional Grievance Redressal Officer (RGRO), District - 24 Parganas (North).
The said R.G.R.O. has passed a draft settlement order dated April 09, 2019 directing the Station Manager, Muragacha customer care centre to regenerate bill with slab and tariff benefit and affording the opportunity to the petitioner to pay the amount after generation of bill, if necessary by affording her opportunity to liquidate the billed amount by 12 of equal monthly instalments. The principal grievance of the petitioner is that the final settlement order in terms of the said draft settlement order was never passed.
It appears from the report submitted by the distribution company that it has treated the said draft settlement order as final, such step is not sustainable, accordingly the said draft settlement order is set aside. The said R.G.R.O. is directed to decide the pending issues between the consumer and the distribution company limited afresh in accordance with law after giving the petitioner and the distribution company opportunity of hearing expeditiously preferably within a period of six weeks from the date of communication of this order.
No affidavit since has been invited against the report of the distribution company limited and no affidavit since has been invited against the writ petition, the allegations made in the said report and the writ petition are deemed to have been denied by the respective parties.
It is made clear that this Court has not gone into the merit of the claim and the counter claim of the parties all points are kept open to be decided by the said R.G.R.O. W.P.A. 3677 of 2020 is disposed of with the above terms without any order as to costs.
Parties to act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this Court. Urgent Photostat certified copy of this order, if applied for, be supplied to the parties, subject to compliance of all requisite formalities.
(Biswajit Basu, J.)