Can't waive 50 pc power bills of defaulters; Delhi govt to HC

The city government today took a stand contrary to the Cabinet decision of the then Arvind Kejriwal dispensation in the High Court saying it cannot waive 50 per cent of the power bills of the defaulters.
"The competent authority of the government has not made any provision in the budget for release of funds for the purpose and in the absence of the availability of funds, therefore, in the present circumstances, it is not possible to implement the decision of the Cabinet for providing reliefs to the electricity consumers who stopped paying the bills...," Delhi government told the court through an affidavit.

A bench of Chief Justice G Rohini and Justice R S Endlaw took note of the reply of the government and disposed of the petition seeking quashing of the cabinet decision on the issue.
It, however, gave Vivek Sharma, who had filed the petition, liberty to move the court again if the government again decides to give subsidy to the defaulters.
The petition has challenged the decision to give subsidy to the tune of Rs 6.82 crore to people who stopped paying bills from October 2012 to December 2013 on the call of Kejriwal during the protests against alleged inflated billing by discoms.

Earlier, the court had stayed the operation of the February 12 Delhi Cabinet decision to provide 50 per cent waiver on power arrears of people who did not pay bills.

The court had also directed petitioner advocate Vivek Sharma to amend his plea by removing former Chief Minister Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia from the list of parties.
The legal department of the government had said that such a waiver can only be given prospectively and not retrospectively as per the statute, Electricity Act, 2003.
It also stated that the planning department had said that the proposed exemption was "not appropriate" as it will be "tantamount to rewarding the defaulters at the cost of honest and regular paying consumers".

The finance department too had objected to the proposed waiver saying "it will give an advantage to the defaulters and disadvantage to the honest payers and thus it will create a bad precedent", the affidavit said.