Police needs to do more to curb power theft: HC opines

The police needs to do much more to deter people from resorting to power theft, even though it was taking action in such cases, the Delhi High Court said today.
"Maybe you need to lodge more FIRs. Maybe you need to do more," a bench of Acting Chief Justice Gita Mittal and Justice C Hari Shankar said while hearing a PIL seeking directions to the DERC, power distribution company (discom) BSES Rajdhani and the Delhi Police to take steps to prevent power theft.
The court's observation came after the police, represented by Delhi government additional standing counsel Gautam Narayan, said it has been lodging FIRs on complaints of power theft and arrested several persons in course of its investigation.

Police, in a status report, has said that till September 30 this year, it received 3,853 complaints of power theft from the discom and lodged 2,897 cases on that basis.
In the course of investigating these 2,897 cases, police claimed to have arrested 461 persons.
It has also said that it would not be feasible to set up a separate police station to deal with such matters "due to operational and administrative reasons".

However, all its personnel were sensitised to deal with cases of electricity theft, the police has said in its status report.
The petitioner, Raman Suri, in his plea has alleged that the discoms shift the burden of electricity thefts to the genuine customers by raising their tariff.

This allegation has been denied by the discom BSES Rajdhani.
The court listed the matter for further hearing on January 24.