The organization has recently come to known the incidents in the state of Maharashtra where many people were served with wrong and excessive electricity bills. Shockingly, in most of the cases the electricity bills were many times higher than their regular electricity bills. The employees of the electricity companies literally threatened the consumers to pay the electricity bill immediately & warned them about the dire consequences of cutting the electricity supply in case of failure of payment.
Shockingly in some cases aggrieved people paid such excessive and wrong bill amount to the electricity company for want of knowledge of any legal remedy or supportive approach from the concerned electricity company whether belonging to government or private organizations. Hence we have decided to publish this article which provides an effective remedy against the wrong and excessive electricity bills under The Electricity Act 2003.
The organization has already published an article about consumer’s right to get 15 days clear written notice before the disconnection of their electricity connection in spite of the fact that they might not have paid the electricity bill on due date. The link of the article above mentioned is as follows-
The Electricity Act 2003- 15 Days Prior Written Notice Must for disconnecting Electricity
The Electricity Act 2003 which is applicable all over the India deals with many aspects related to production & distribution of the electricity throughout the country and also about the consumer rights including of suppliers belonging to private as well as public sectors. The copy of the Electricity Act 2003 can be viewed and downloaded through the following link-
The Electricity Act 2003
The S.56 of the Electricity Act 2003 along with many other consumer rights, deals with the issue of wrong & excessive electricity bills in form of disputed amount. The reference to the Section 56 of the Electricity Act 2003 is made as follows-
The plain reading of the Section 56 of the Electricity Act 2003 itself makes clear that any electric supplier distributor cannot disconnect the electricity connection of the consumer without serving a clear written 15 days’ prior notice before the disconnection even if the consumer has committed the default of payment.
Also if the consumer disputed the electricity bill for wrong or excessive reason, he has two options, first is to pay the disputed electricity bill totally under protest and challenge it subsequently before competent authority & secondly, if he doesn’t wish to pay the total disputed amount, he has further been given the right to pay the preceding or previous 6 months’ average bill amount under protest which shall entitle him to continue to receive the electricity supply & service continuously and the electricity supplier shall not be allowed to disconnect his electricity connection until the disputed amount is adjudicated finally by competent authority.
In brief the position of the law is that, if the consumer disputes electricity bill as a wrong and excessive then he has right to pay the previous or preceding 6 months’ average bill amount of the electricity bills under protest and to challenge the disputed amount thereafter before the competent authority.
We appeal the people not to get frightened after receipt of wrong and excessive bills and instead of worrying about the consequences, to fight for the truth and teach a permanent lesson to the errant electricity provider whether it belongs to private or public sector.
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-Adv.Siddharthshankar Sharma
Founder President-Bharatiya Krantikari Sangathan
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