Asit Kumar Mandal And ORS. v. The State Of West Bengal And ORS.

25-04-2025 Item No.23 Subrata Bhattacharyya IN THE HIGH COURT AT CALCUTTA Constitutional Writ Jurisdiction Appellate Side AR(C) WPA No.8553 of 2025 Asit Kumar Mandal & Ors.

-vsThe State of West Bengal & Ors.

Mr. Pankaj Halder Mr. Tapas Kumar Manna Mr. Shibjit Mitra Mr. Bidish Ghosh Mr. Sanatan Panja ...for the petitioners Mr. Santanu Chattopadhyay Ms. Tuhina Parvin ...for the State Mr. S.S. Koley ...WBSEDCL 1.

On an earlier occasion, the petitioners had filed WPA No.25364 of 2023 before this court to challenge a notification dated April 18, 2023 issued by the Chief Engineer (Regulation Cell) of West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Limited whereby the tariff orders prescribed by the West Bengal Electricity Regulatory Commission were notified. The petitioners also raised billing disputes.

2.

A coordinate Bench of this court disposed of the writ petition by an order dated December 7, 2023 with regard to the challenge of tariff holding, inter alis, that there was no scope to interfere with the tariff order in the writ jurisdiction. The petitioners were granted liberty to approach the concerned Grievance Redressal Officer for the billing dispute.

3.

It appears that the petitioners, thereafter, approached the Grievance Redressal Officer and the Grievance Redressal Officer by his final settlement order dated March 11, 2024 observed that there was no billing dispute raised by the petitioners, therefore their case was liable to be rejected.

4.

The petitioners, assailing the said final settlement order, have approached this court by filing this writ petition.

5.

I am of the view that the Regional Grievance Redressal Officer has rightly held that a tariff order cannot be challenged by them.

6.

Therefore, there is no scope to interfere with the final settlement order dated March 11, 2024.

7.

The petitioners, however, seek to challenge the tariff orders as mentioned in the notification dated April 18, 2023.

8.

This order, however, shall not prevent the petitioners from challenging the tariff orders in accordance with law before the appropriate forum.

9.

Thus, WPA No.8553 of 2025 stands dismissed.

10.

All parties are to act on the server copy of this order duly downloaded from the official website of this court.

11.

Certified copy of this order, if applied for, shall be made available to the parties.

[Kausik Chanda, J]