The Madras High Court today disposed of a PIL seeking a direction to the Electricity Board (EB) to take action against illegal power connections in Coimbatore city and suggested it set up a department to deal with complaints.
The first bench, comprising Chief Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Justice M.Sathyanarayanan, while observing that it is not possible for the court to take over functioning of EB, said "the Board has to function in accordance with the rules and norms and if infractions are found to be taken notice, action must be taken in a time-bound manner."
The bench also suggested to the Board that there be a department dealing with complaints so that it can process the same and, if found correct, to take corrective action.
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The petitioner Coimbatore Consumer Voice, represented by its secretary N Logu, submitted electricity connections in various zones of Coimbatore Metro Electricity corporation were given in violation of sub-regulation 12 of Regulation 29 of Tamil Nadu Electricity distribution Code.
These rules said that for any building/premises needing LT connection with 900 sq mts floor area and above, an electrical room with RCC roof with a floor area of 6x4 mtrs, vertical clearance of 2.75 M with locking facility, exhaust fans and adequate size cable duct shall be given in the ground floor within consumer premises of storeyed buildings near the main entrance to install floor-mounted distribution transformer and associated switchgear.
Though the fraud has been unearthed, no action had been taken till date against officers who violated and abused their powers causing wrongful loss to the Board, the petitioner said.
Logu said several representations have been given to the higher authorities in this regard but there was no response and hence they filed a PIL.
He sought a direction from the court to the higher authorities to take action on his representations.
The bench in its order said "the Electricity Board should continue to see that consumers utilize electricity in accordance with the norms and infractions detected are cured within a time-bound schedule.
