M/s.VAK Engineering Pvt. Ltd. v. Chandra Prakash Singh

1IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUDICATURE AT MADRAS(CONTEMPT JURISDICTION) FRIDAY, THE 4TH DAY OF DECEMBER, 2009 THE HON'BLE MRS.JUSTICE PRABHA SRIDEVANANDTHE HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE M.SATHYANARAYANANCONTEMPT PETITION No.452 of 2009************M/s.VAK Engineering Pvt. Ltd.,Represented by its Director Rajesh Malhotra,Having office at No.326, M.K.N.Road,Alandur, Chennai 16....PetitionerVs1)Chandra Prakash Singh, The Chairman, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Mount Road, Chennai 2.2)P.Shanmugam, The Assistant Divisional Engineer, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Alandur, Chennai.3)M.Madhan, The Superintending Engineer, Tamil Nadu Electricity Board, Chennai 2.... RespondentsContempt Petition praying that this Court be pleasedto punish the respondents for having committed contemptby disobeying the order of this Hon'ble Court dated14/07/1995 and made in W.P.No.6943 of 1995. https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 2The above Contempt Petition coming on this day beforethis Court for hearing in the presence of Mr.Abudu KumarRajaratnam, Advocate for the petitioner herein; and ofMr.A.Selvendran, Advocate for respondents(TNEB) herein; andupon reading the petition and affidavit of Rajesh Malhotra,filed herein; and the counter affidavits of M.Madhan andC.P.Singh, filed herein; the Court made the followingorder:-This contempt petition is filed for the violation ofthe order dated 14-07-1995 in W.P.No.6943 of 1995. Thepetitioner herein prayed for a mandamus to restrain thefirst and second respondent herein from grantingelectricity connection to anyone other than the petitionerhimself for the lands measuring 8 acres in T.S.Nos.122, 138in ward E block I in Alandur Municipality in Saidapet TalukChengai MGR District. The writ petition was disposed ofafter hearing the counsel for the petitioner and thecounsel for the Electricity Board as follows:"Petitioner claims to be the owner oflands measuring about 8 acres situated inT.S.Nos.122, 138 in Ward E Block I in AlandurMunicipality in Saidapet taluk, Chengai MGRDistrict. The petitioner in this petition hassought a direction to the respondents not to https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 3grant any power connection to any third partywho had approached on that land without hearingthe petitioner.2.Counsel for the respondentsstates that such opportunity will be given.This submission is placed on record. Counselfor the respondent/Board states that it is theSuperintending Engineer (South) who will begiving such opportunity to the petitioner.3.This petition is disposed of accordingly."2.In April 2009, this Contempt Petition was filedalleging that notwithstanding the said order, theElectricity Board has deliberately and willfully grantedsix service connections without giving the petitioner anopportunity of hearing as directed by this Court in theorder extracted above. When the matter came up before thelearned Single Judge the learned counsel for theElectricity Board took notice. Thereafter,since connectedmatters were being heard by us, this contempt petition waslisted before us. 3.In view of the lapse of nearly 15 years from thedate of the order till the date of the alleged contempt, wethought that we would first direct the first respondent tofile a counter and thereafter, if the materials stated inthe counter warranted issue of notice in contempt, we woulddo so. https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/

44.The Chairman, Electricity Board, the firstrespondent herein has filed his counter. He has referredto the Regulations subject to which the Board effectselectricity service connection and it is also stated thatthe receipt of the application for service connections inthe case of low tension service as in the case on hand isdealt with at the lower level and the grant of power supplyconnection may not be dealt with by the Chairman himself.After the first respondent came to know of the aforesaidorder he has stated that he verified that no serviceconnection to any third party encroacher is effected andwith this he also tendered his apology. This counter issigned on 26-11-2009.5.The third respondent has filed a counter where hehas referred to the numerous litigation between theparties. This is dealt with in detail in Paragraph Nos.2and 3 of the counter and we record our strong disapprovalof the tenor of the counter with regard to the litigationsfiled by the petitioner. However, he has stated inParagraph No.4 that they had no knowledge of the order andhad they known they would obeyed the order in letter andspirit and that it is not possible to ascertain each of itspredecessors were in office at the time when the order ispassed. The service connections which have been attacked asamounting to contempt have been effected from 2001 to 2008.The details are given in the counter and they are extracted https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 5below: Sl.No.Name ofConsumerServiceConnectionNumberTariffDate ofServiceConnectionLoad1T. Appas 290-10-237V 30/06/20011000 Watts2T. Appas 290-10-346V21/01/20031000 Watts3T. Appas 290-10-407IA24/05/20062000 Watts4T. Appas 290-10-430V13/07/20061000 Watts5T. Appas 290-10-453V02/05/20074000 Watts6T. Appas 290-10-460V19/07/20074000 Watts7T. Appas 290-10-462V10/09/200710K.Watts8T. Appas290-10-475IA30/01/2008880 Watts6.According to the third respondent, it is onlyafter verifying the records and subject to the Regulationsof Tamil Nadu Electricity Board in particular, Regulation27 that the connection is given and according to him, theapplicant of each of the said service connection hadproduced tax receipts and documents; only thereafter, theconnections were given.7.The learned counsel for the petitioner submittedthat the connection was given evenafter the demolitionnotices were issued in 18-12-1998 and 15-11-2005 and inspite of that the Electricity Board has given connection.The learned Standing counsel for the Electricity Boardsubmits that it is for the Alandur Municipality to bring tothe notice of the Electricity Board that a demolitionnotice is given. If it is not brought to the knowledge,the service connections are given according to the Codesgoverning them. If, in any case, service connection has https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 6been effected and thereafter, the entitlement of theoccupier is negatived, then the service connections soeffected would be shifted or otherwise disconnected afterissuing a show cause notice and after hearing the parties.Other than that, at this stage when connection has beengiven on the basis of the documents produced andespecially, when, as a mater of fact, the 1995 order wasnot brought to the notice of the Officers it cannot be saidthat there is any wilful disobedience of the Court's order.We find that some of the connections were given in 2002 and2003 and even the last connection is more than a year priorto the filing of the contempt petition. The explanationgiven by the respondents that the order dated 1995 was notbrought to their notice and the persons who were in officeat that time would have had knowledge. But without knowingabout that order, the service connections were given and itis not with intention to violate the Court's order. Sincecontempt jurisprudence is quasi-criminal, we think that ifthe explanation given by the respondents is a plausibleexplanation, we cannot hold them guilty of contempt and thecontempt petition is closed. 8. But, however, since we have disapproved of thelanguage used by the third respondent in his counter, heshall be present in Court on Monday to give explanation asto why he has commented upon a litigation in his counter.We earnestly hope that the Electricity Board will be more https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 7careful about giving service connections especially whenthere are Court's orders in that regard. The firstrespondent should formulate some guidelines so that thejunior level officers are put on notice when there areorders and they shall strictly obey our orders. Witness the Hon'ble Thiru HEMANT LAXMAN GOKHALE, theChief Justice of High Court at Madras, as aforesaid, thisthe 4th day of December, 2009. Sd/-DEPUTY REGISTRAR (OS)//Certified to be true copy//Dated at Madras this the day of 2009.COURT OFFICER(O.S.)From 25th Day of September 2008 the Registry is issuingcertified copies of the Orders/Judgments/Decrees in thisformat. https://hcservices.ecourts.gov.in/hcservices/ 8 SMVCONTEMPT PETITION No.452/2009THE HON'BLE MRS.JUSTICE PRABHA SRIDEVAN AND THE HON'BLE MR.JUSTICE M.SATHYANARAYANANORDERDATED : 04/12/2009FOR APPROVAL :04/01/2010APPROVED ON :04/01/2010