In Dakschinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam Ltd. v. Vidut Lokpal, Uttar Pradesh & Ors., a Bench of the Supreme Court comprising Justices S.V.N. Bhatti and N.V. Anjaria has dismissed a distribution licensee's appeal on two distinct grounds — holding, first, that only a consumer, and not the distribution licensee itself, has the right under Section 42(6) of the Electricity Act, 2003 to make a representation to the Electricity Ombudsman against an order of a Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum, and second, that a stale electricity demand raised years after it first arose is barred by the two-year limitation period in Section 56(2) of the Act.
The dispute arose out of a demand of ₹57,74,164 raised by the DISCOM in 2007 towards Minimum Consumption Guarantee Charges relating back to 1998, over additional sanctioned load the consumer maintained had never actually been released or supplied. The Consumer Grievance Redressal Forum and, on appeal, the Electricity Ombudsman both ruled against the licensee. Before the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench), the licensee's own right to have approached the Ombudsman in the first place came into question: the High Court held that Section 42(6) confines the right to make a representation against a Forum's order to consumers alone, and that the regulation the licensee had relied on to justify its own representation to the Ombudsman was, to that extent, ultra vires Section 42(6).
The Supreme Court affirmed that reading of Section 42(6), and separately upheld the finding that the DISCOM's 2007 demand for 1998 dues was time-barred under Section 56(2) of the Act, which bars recovery of a sum first due more than two years earlier unless it has continuously been shown as an arrear. The Court found no basis to disturb the concurrent findings of the Forum, the Ombudsman and the High Court, and dismissed the distribution licensee's appeal.